


Bullet Chess

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Big Bang Challenge, Bodyguard, F/F, Flirting, Gun Violence, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: Modern AU. Weiss Schnee and her bodyguard, Yang Xiao Long, are attending a political fundraiser. As are soldier-turned-businesswoman Winter Schnee and an enigmatic consultant by the name of Cinder Fall. Oh, and a couple dozen White Fang terrorists decide to show up, too.Written for the RWBY Big Bang. Action-centric.





	1. Why Are We Here?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Seven for a Secret](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5674213) by [WilliamRaineyHarlaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamRaineyHarlaw/pseuds/WilliamRaineyHarlaw). 



> This is my first attempt at writing something where the focus is primarily on the action, not the interpersonal drama. Please be gentle.
> 
> This story is a sequel to the plot (if not really the tone) of _[The Gods Thought Otherwise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090933)_. You don't need to read it to understand this fic (as much as I'd love everyone to), just assume that Winter and Cinder have established a sporadic and ill-defined relationship.

It might not have _literally_ been the slowest elevator in the world, but that hadn't stopped Yang Xiao Long from insinuating exactly that a half-dozen times before they’d cleared the tenth story. How an otherwise perfectly-modern skyscraper could contain an elevator that was apparently appropriated from the Victorian era was beyond the young woman.

_Twenty... twenty-one... twenty-two... ... .. twenty-two ... ... ... ... ... twenty-three..._

The lights above the elevator door's threshold ticked upwards at a maddeningly slow pace, a quantification of her own private Purgatory. Yang’s head came to a rest against the mirrored walls of the elevator with a dull _thud_ , her own lifeless visage staring back at her.

"Hey," Yang finally said, her desperate need to alleviate her own boredom shattering the silence of the elevator car.

"Yeah?" Weiss didn't bother looking up from her phone, on which she was currently re-drafting an outline for a term paper assessing which economic schools of thought best explained trends in commercial development in post-Soviet Central Asia. It was not exactly the kind of work that screamed for input from her closest friend.

"Ever wonder why we're here?"

Weiss barely suppressed a groan. It was _never_ a good omen when Yang was bored enough to wax philosophical. "It’s one of life’s great mysteries isn't it?” Yang continued, unprompted and unsolicited. “Why _are_ we here? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don’t know-"

" _I'm_ here because my Father thought this little political fundraiser beneath his attention," Weiss snapped, finally tearing her gaze from her phone. " _You're_ here because I pay you a quite frankly _offensive_ amount of money to be the world's most impolite bodyguard."

Weiss turned her full attention to the bodyguard in question, who was grinning that triumphant grin of hers. The one she always flashed whenever she succeeded in dragging Weiss away from her work for a few minutes. Even if she needed to be an absolute _pest_ to do so.

"And because you value my services as a bodyguard _so_ highly," Yang began, "you absolutely _insisted_ I bring a sidearm with me. So that if - heavens forbid - you were attacked, I would actually have _some_ way of defending you."

Weiss rolled her eyes, having heard about fourteen permutations of this complaint on the drive into the central business district. "This is a political fundraiser, Yang, not a John Woo movie. The people here might be conniving opportunists but they don't have the stomachs for actual bloodshed." Yang snorted a little dismissively at that, folding her arms across her chest. "Besides, you stand out enough as it is."

This time it was Yang's turn to roll her eyes at an oft-repeated gripe. She was dressed about as 'properly' as the limits of her personality allowed. The black dress jacket and matching pants _might_ have allowed her to squeak by in the corridors of power Weiss traversed. Unfortunately, whatever modicum of propriety that afforded her was immediately undone by the bright-yellow dress shirt beneath, outshone only by a golden mane of hair that cascaded halfway down her back.

It was a bombastic look, a rebellious one. The indifferent appearance of someone who didn't much care for the easily-offended sensibilities of the world's rich and powerful. Disrespecting traditions, flouting rules, transgressing taboos. Outside of those invisible bonds that had constrained the heiress beside her for her entire life.

And Weiss had to bite her lip to keep herself from pinning Yang to the elevator's wall and _claiming_ her.

The devil on Weiss' shoulder probably would've won, too, had the elevator doors not _finally_ parted. In one final breach of protocol Yang insisted on walking before Weiss, upstaging her entrance, as if expecting one of the white-gloved waiters to take a shot at her charge.

Unfortunately for Weiss, the dangers here wouldn't be as blasé as an assassination attempt. Of course not. No, she'd have to spend the next several hours, surrounded by pompous idiots with delusions of grandeur, making (she shuddered)... _small talk_.

* * *

In an odd quirk of fate, at the precise moment one Schnee was being asked why she was there, another was ask _ing_ the exact same question.

Demanding, really. There wasn’t a lot of room in her tone for wonder.

" _Why_ _are you here_?" hissed Winter Schnee, as viciously as she could without her voice rising above the din of proximal hobnobbing. Slender fingers tightened around a tumbler of neat scotch, threatening to shatter glass if her fury wasn't abated.

Cinder Fall finished a dainty sip of a martini the color of blood, dabbing her lips with the edge of a napkin in a display of abject unhurriedness. Miss Fall was wearing a _qipao_ style dress the color of melting tar, inlaid with small black roses. The design was unabashedly modern: the hem halting well above her knees, arms left bare, a high collar ringing her throat. The high heels on her feet looked like they’d been carved from solid obsidian. Even in a hall packed with cash-flush socialites, Cinder had a way of making her presence _felt_.

"Winter, my dear," Cinder finally replied, her tone warm and with just a wisp of a drawl, "what a pleasant surprise."

Unlike Yang, Winter was genuinely relieved that she'd left her pistol stashed in the glove compartment of her car. The temptation to do something _regrettable_ would otherwise have been nigh-overwhelming.

"I don't appreciate being toyed with, _Cinder_ ," growled Winter, her voice dropping to a menacing _contralto_. "Nor do I have time for your smoke and mirrors."

Cinder turned her back to the bar but didn't meet Winter's glower, instead keeping her gaze leveled on the mingling politicos before her. "I had hoped your time in the military-industrial complex had built up your tolerance for polite façades," mused Cinder aloud, taking another leisurely sip. An imprint of sanguine lipstick remained on the glass. "A pity, then."

"You have twenty seconds," stated Winter, "before I summon security and start making a scene."

Cinder deigned to glance her way at last, a wry smile creeping across her face. She swirled the contents of her glass for a few seconds, as if seriously contemplating putting Winter’s promise to the test.

"I suppose I should have expected no less stubbornness from a Schnee," Cinder conceded. Winter exhaled ever-so-softly from her nose. She'd have hated to upset social decorum, but if there was one thing Winter Schnee didn't do it was make empty promises. "I'm here in a private capacity. As a citizen interested in the political process."

It wasn't much of an answer, but it was enough to cool Winter's simmering rage, at least for the moment. Cinder Fall had an infuriating habit of appearing in Winter's life right when she needed distractions the least, offering comfort and companionship and stringing the Schnee along like a marionette in the process. After fighting so long for her own independence there was nothing Winter hated quite like someone who knew _exactly_ how to press her buttons.

"I don't see a lot of concerned voters around here, do you?" asked Winter, rhetorically. She finished the remainder of her scotch. The hard liquor didn't exactly mesh with the effeminate cheongsam-style dress she was wearing, but Winter could only pretend so much to be someone other than herself. Try as she might to effect the kind of grandiloquent beauty the Schnee daughters were expected to exude, Winter was not a _soft_ person. She flagged down the bartender for another drink.

"I said I was interested in the political process, Winter, not _democracy_ ," corrected Cinder, with that coy little smile of hers that approached the cusp of smugness.

"So go chat up the Winchester kid, or whoever your K Street Illuminati have anointed to hold office."

"You read too many airport paperbacks, dear," Cinder chided. "And besides, I’ve already placed my bet on another thoroughbred."

Winter's brow furrowed as she tried to parse Cinder's innuendo. She belatedly realized that Cinder was staring directly at _her_.

" _Ha_!"

The laugh escaped Winter before a lifetime of self-discipline could suppress it, earning the pair a few sideways glances and raised eyebrows. " _Me_ , run for office?" The mirth vanished from her face a moment later. " _Mein Gott_ , you're serious."

"Tragically, _yes_ ," answered Cinder, a tad morosely, finishing her drink and signaling wordlessly for another. "And you're not so cloistered to have overlooked that your name is being bantered about. On _both_ sides of the aisle, no less."

Winter scoffed at that, snatching the glass being set before her and downing enough of it to burn her throat. "Everyone's looking for the next Eisenhower," she deflected, easily, after a resonant cough. "You put too much weight in idle parlor games."

"And even babbling crowds can sometimes utter wisdom," Cinder replied, with equal deftness. "You have a sterling military record that any blue-blooded scion would kill for. You took a company bankrupted by your Father's megalomania and brought it to the Fortune 500. And..." Cinder paused, nodding her thanks as the bartender proffered a glass "...you're beautiful."

No matter how high Winter raised her guard when she conversed with Cinder, the mysterious woman always managed to find the chink in her armor, arrange words so as to pierce her defenses. Winter was scarlet before she could so much as blink.

It took a subjective eternity for Winter to come to her senses, for a scowl to crease her face at the ease at which she'd been played. But try as she might she couldn't find the tease in Cinder's voice, nor a trace of jest on her face. ' _Honest_ ' was one of the few adjectives that one would never be used to describe Miss Fall, but that only made her apparent earnestness all the more disarming.

"I've never desired to become a politician," Winter (finally) answered, eyes resting on the countertop of polished marble.

"Nor would I ever accuse you of such," replied Cinder. "But you have a desire to serve the public, to a degree quite atypical for your bloodline. I don't believe that even the putrid stench of Congress will deter you from what you consider your duty."

Winter stared into the amber depths of her drink. Her mind searched for a dry-witted rebuttal and came up wanting. And that alone spoke volumes.


	2. Wet and Messy

"I'll have a white sangria, easy on the liqueur, and make sure they add extra honey”, dictated Weiss, her attention never drifting from her nails.

"Strawberry Sunrise," said Yang cheerfully, the discovery of an open bar an oasis of pleasure in this desert of boredom. "No ice. Oh, and one of those little umbrellas."

"She'll actually have a Coke," interjected Weiss, before the waiter could scurry off. "Better make it a Diet Coke."

The hapless waiter's lips parted in a futile attempt to clarify the situation, but Weiss' icy glare made it clear that this was _not_ a debate. Not even the fire in Yang's oh-so-fiery gaze could compete with the Patented Schnee Death Glare.

"You're working," Weiss explained, the waiter having vanished the moment she broke eye contact. "I'm pretty sure it's against the terms of your contract to drink while guarding a charge."

"There is a _special_ hell for people like you," growled Yang. "It's the same one for child molesters. And people who talk at the theater."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Really, Yang? Besides, you need to be stone-cold sober in case I need to make a fast exit."

"Expecting a terrorist attack after all?"

"More like-"

"- _Weiss Schnee_! Holy shit you look _hawt_."

Weiss spun about, mouth agape, as the first would-be suitor of the night made himself known. Her hand was in his before she knew it, his lips sloppily pressed against her knuckles a heartbeat later. The worst part was he probably thought that was pretty charming, too.

"How good to see you again Mister ... _Winchester_ ," answered Weiss, dredging up the man's name from the dark recesses of her memory.

"Please, Weiss, call me Cardin. All my bros do," replied the boy with a guffaw, one arm slipping beneath hers. "So what're you doing at a sausage-fest like this?"

"Well, as I was just telling my friend..." Weiss glanced over her shoulder, searching desperately for her blonde-haired lifeline. She blinked, then blinked again, and continued blinking until she realized that Yang wasn't standing behind her. It took her all of five seconds to realize that her _so-called_ bodyguard had just thrown her to the wolves.

"...son of a _-_ "

* * *

Four stories below, on a floor that the building directory listed as vacant, a man flipped a switch on a small, squat box, turning on a device that could easily have been mistaken for some archaic piece of stereo hardware. A few lights on the front of it flickered to life, but nothing else happened, to the disappointment of those more used to Hollywood’s renditions of such things. The thing didn't even _buzz_ , a few green and red LEDs just silently flashing to life.

Several floors above, a balding man stared at his phone, wondering why the conversation he'd been having with his soon-to-be-ex-wife had suddenly ended. The absence of any bars on his phone caused him to let out a short ' _huh_ ' of mild befuddlement, but he just shrugged and pocketed the device, and then returned to his networking. He’d heard that there were _two_ Schnees here tonight, after all, and that opportunity was not to be squandered...

* * *

Yang did a full circuit of the floor, partially to do a proper survey of the terrain, partially to stretch her legs, and mostly just to torment Weiss. Normally, of course, she would never be so cruel as to leave her definitely-gay girlfriend at the mercies of such a thick-skulled bonehead as Cardin. _Normally_.

Yang sipped her Diet Coke through a straw, wincing as she did. Christ, was Weiss trying to _aspartame_ her to death?

The venue was, she had to admit, pretty classy. Almost the entire story - which in itself had the dimensions of something like a city block - was a ballroom floor, studded with white-clothed tables and abuzz with dilettantes and wait staff. The “center” of the floor, as viewed from a bird’s perspective, was ringed by two large, semi-circular walls, which bracketed like parentheses a well-stocked bar. The bar was thus partially isolated from the rest of the ballroom, offering guests some respite from the hustle and bustle of the open floor.

Yang weaved her way towards the bar, keeping an eye out for questionable patrons and emergency exists as she went. She almost mistook one woman in a cheongsam-style dress for Weiss, before reminding herself that white hair dye was slowly trickling down from the runways of Italy and France to the more fashion-conscious members of High Society. The bar itself served to envelop a kitchen, from which the occasional catering contractor emerged, which Yang conceded was pretty convenient from a food service perspective.

She circled back around behind Winchester, letting Weiss lock eyes with her over the jock's shoulder. The heiress' hand flew to her ear almost immediately, tugging at her lobe in a not-particularly-subtle cry for help. The Winchesters were important enough that even Weiss couldn't brush him off without creating ripples in the pond of polite society, but that was the extent of her patience.

Yang strolled up behind Winchester at a leisurely gambol, though now her plodding pace actually served a purpose. While Cardin kept one hand plastered to the small of Weiss' back he was gesticulating wildly with the other, punctuating almost every word with a sweep of his hand or some vaguely violent gesture. One didn't need to be the love child of Napoleon Bonaparte and Hannibal Barca to come up with a decent plan of attack.

Yang waited for the right moment. And waited. And waited. And... _three... two... one..._

"... so I looked at her boyfriend and told her, ' _obviously there's an exception for service animals_ -"

The cola was airborne before anyone had a chance to react, splashing across Weiss' chest and staining her ice-blue dress. Yang’s glass hit the floor a half-second later, shattering into a million crystalline daggers on the marble below. The room seemed to grind to a halt as every pair of eyes swiveled to take in the spectacle, Cardin Winchester suddenly slack-jawed at the scene he had (unwittingly) created.

" _Christ_ , idiot, why don't you want what you're doing," snarled Yang. "You _ruined_ her dress."

"I... you... didn't mean... _what_?"

"If you showed, I dunno, the situational awareness of a _sloth_ maybe you wouldn't have insulted Miss Schnee like that!"

"It was simply an accident," interjected Weiss, under the guise of defusing the situation, keeping her tone flat and frigid. "Though you'll have to excuse me, Mr. Winchester. My _sincere_ apologies."

Weiss detached herself from Cardin with as much dignity as she could manage, and the crowd pointedly directed its collective attention elsewhere. Cardin stood by himself, alone but for the stifled guffaws of his hanger-ons, while Yang chased her charge into a bathroom.

"Spilling your drink on me was _not_ the rescue plan I had envisioned, Yang Xiao Long," seethed Weiss, after confirming that they had the marble-tiled _salle de bains_ to themselves. She stared helplessly at the discolored fabric, mentally triaging the stains.

"Well, you know the old saying about when life gives you Diet Coke," Yang quipped. Though she did feel a _little_ guilty. She'd been intending to splash little more than Weiss' shoes, but Cardin had knocked her hand with more force than she'd anticipated. "Made that Winchester guy look like an asshole."

"I don't think he needed your help on _that_ particular point," Weiss muttered. She wetted a paper towel and began dabbing ineffectually at the stains. She'd left her purse, complete with her emergency stick of stain-remover, at the coat-check, but for whatever reason Weiss found herself in no hurry to go out and retrieve it.

"Well, on the bright side, you've got an excuse to slip out now?" said Yang, with forced optimism.

"Yes, Yang, and I could also have pretended to be sick and skipped this event entirely. But I’m not a freshman playing hooky." Weiss sighed, tossing the paper towel aside.

"Here, let me help," Yang said, pulling a handkerchief out of her suit jacket's pocket. She ran it under the water and began dabbing delicately at the fabric above Weiss' bosom, the heiress raising a skeptical eyebrow in turn. But Yang kept her attention conspicuously focused on the stains, dabbing and wiping and rubbing, pulling so close to Weiss that her girlfriend's breath were buffeting strands of golden hair...

Yang's skin sent shivers down Weiss’ spine, caused white hairs to stand on end and her knees to go treacherously weak. Yang's touch was fire, and Weiss had long since learned that some chemical reactions simply couldn’t be stopped.

"I think some of it might have seeped through your dress," murmured Yang, exhausting her reserves of subtlety. "You don't want it to get on your skin."

"I don't," Weiss whispered in agreement. "Think you could wipe it off for me?"

"I might need to slide your dress down a bit," answered Yang, a mischievous grin coming to her face even as she grew flush with anticipation. “To reach the, uh, _affected areas_. Would you mind?"

"Not in the slightest."

A stall door was bolted shut a moment later.

* * *

"So you know your sister's pretty and everything but you're like, _wow_. I mean normally any girl over twenty-five is kind of a Christmas Cake on New Year’s. You know, like, definitely past her ‘best before date’. Hah. But I mean…”

Winter refocused her attention on running through the list of all the sins she’d ever committed. It was a long list, to be sure, every cardinal sin and capital vice was well-represented in just the _Bildungsroman_ of her life. But nowhere in the _Divine Comedy_ was there a level of Hell where the damned were cornered for an eternity by dullards of unspeakable crassness. It must have been something she'd done in a past life, Winter concluded, some karmic punishment being meted out over multiple incarnations. Though she was still left puzzling over what exactly anyone _could_ have done to deserve this...

"So my Dad says you're going to run for like Governor or something," Winchester continued, blissfully ignorant of the plethora of ways in which Winter had already fantasized about killing him. "I don't normally vote but he says you can take it back from the globalists then I'd totally run your Super PAC for you if..."

"The SEC is at this very moment preparing fraudulent investment charges against your father in relation to the collapse of his little _entertainment_ business." For once in her life, Winter was unreservedly grateful to hear Cinder's drawl of effortless superiority. "I'd suggest trusting his wisdom slightly less than his investors did."

Winchester sputtered at the surprise assault, out-flanked and off-footed, though Cinder didn't bother with so much as a triumphant smirk. "Miss Schnee, may I borrow a few minutes of your precious time?"

As much as she preferred keeping her distance from Cinder, Winter recognized a lifebuoy when one was being lobbed at her head. "Of course. And Mr. Winchester-" he was naïve enough to actually look up with hope in his eyes - " _do_ give me a call when you're old enough for that drink."

Winter didn't wait to see his reaction, spinning on her heel in a maneuver burned into muscle memory by a decade in uniform.

"I didn't need a rescue," noted Winter, just a little too defensively, as she caught up to Cinder.

"And here I mistook you for a blushing damsel in distress," mused Cinder in reply. She came to a halt at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city beneath them, the town glistening like a jewel in the night. On a distant hill Winter could faintly make out the famous clock tower of Beacon, which no doubt was being gawked at by excitable tourists at this very moment.

"Thank you, though," Winter allowed, drawing up beside Cinder. "If I had to put up with five more minutes of idiotic flirting and politicking..."

Cinder's eyes squinted for a moment, staring at something in the distant cityscape, before she turned around to look Winter square in the eye.

"I have my suspicions that that won't be much of a problem going forward," she said. Winter didn't even have time to ponder that cryptic tone.

A burst of automatic gunfire roared through the air, the shattering of a hanging chandelier drowned out by screams of surprise and terror. Winter was on the ground a moment later, yanking Cinder Fall unceremoniously down with her. Her hand was already at the small of her back by the time she remembered she'd left her sidearm in the car, which elicited a torrent of self-berating curses.

She was halfway through unbuckling a heeled shoe when a nasally voice cut through the din of terror. "Ladies and gentlemen," the man known only as 'Adam' began, unsheathing the katana at his hip with the ease of someone who actually knew how to use it.

"We are the White Fang."


	3. Damsels of Distress

The fact that she hadn’t been shot was about the only positive about their situation Winter could think of. As soon as the gunfire had subsided she’d made a quick dash to the kitchens behind the bar, praying to any god that would listen that she hadn’t been spotted in the chaos. The small kitchen staff had already fled by the time she entered, perhaps to some emergency exit, so Winter had thought she’d have the place to herself before she’d realized that Cinder had somehow kept up with her. Which complicated her plans for survival somewhat...

“What an incredible smell you’ve discovered,” growled Cinder in a low murmur, not bothering to mask her displeasure at their current state of affairs.

Winter snorted, pushing with her shoulder to slide a large refrigeration unit out of the way. “What, run out of dead poets and had to start quoting pop culture? I’m shocked.” Her tone strongly suggested the opposite. With a deep _groan_ of exertion Winter shoved the oversized refrigeration unit a few feet away from the wall, creating a small recess between the wall, the fridge, and the nearby shelves. She had no delusions that it would conceal them from the White Fang for very long, certainly not if anyone was actively searching for them, but right now it was a step up from nothing.

“Ladies first,” Winter said, with as much wryness as she could muster. Cinder let slip a mournful expression as she smoothly slid herself into the concealment, not exactly with the urgency of a woman fearful for her life. Winter followed suit a moment later, sliding the kitchen unit back into place as best she could. It was not one of her better plans, General Ironwood would have no doubt noted, but she was not exactly strategizing from a position of tactical superiority.

“Well, this is certainly… _cozy_ ,” murmured Cinder, one hand coming to rest atop Winter’s bare arm. Winter was under no illusions that the touch was accidental, because nothing with Cinder ever was, but she did her best to ignore it.

“A regular seven minutes in heaven, I know,” Winter grunted in response. Though some part of the back of her mind was grateful that Cinder was keeping her cool. Panicked civvies were just the _worst_. “How about we focus on figuring out what to do next?”

“I’m certain that you already have some _brilliant_ -”

" _What do you mean he's not here_?"

Cinder’s conclusion was interrupted by a voice seemingly out of nowhere, and the surprise caused Winter’s heart to miss a beat. Her eyes darted around for the source of the noise, her directional hearing apparently failing her, until she realized it was coming through the wall. Through a _vent_ , to be more precise, a discreet slit in the wall connecting the kitchen to the bar.

" _He changed his plans. Our guy says he decided to stay at that SDC retreat longer than planned._ "

Winter’s brow furrowed as she realized what exactly she was eavesdropping on. Two of the White Fang grunts, males in their early twenties by the timbre of their voices, who must have been standing just on the other side of the wall. Winter was by nobody’s definition a pious woman, but she let out a wordless prayer of gratitude to the Fates for her serendipity.

“They were going after my father,” Winter said, speaking in a hoarse whisper to the woman in black beside her.

“Will you be offended if I don’t acted surprised?” Cinder replied, sounding almost uninterested in the terrorist attack unfolding before her. Winter shot her a glare but returned her gaze to the vent. There were two metal grates and a three sets of spinning fan blades between her and the atrium, but as a keyhole it was wide enough.

" _It doesn't matter._ " Winter sucked in her breath despite herself, that oh-too-recognizable voice now suddenly _right in front of her_. Adam strode between the two grunts, a hand resting easily on the hilt of his katana, which he had thankfully sheathed once his theatrical entrance was over. " _The die is cast. We'll simply_ -" a loud clattering from the ballroom interrupted his sentence, and the trio of terrorists vanished from Winter’s field of vision. The veteran slunk back into her crevice

"So Adam himself showed up," pondered Cinder, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "I suppose he always did have a flair for the dramatic."

"' _Arrogance_ ' is the word you're looking for," murmured Winter in reply. "The entire intelligence community is convinced he's in the Triple Frontier and he just _had_ to make a point of correcting of them."

"Perhaps he couldn't stand the thought of being considered a coward," Cinder offered. "Of becoming an impotent recluse like poor Osama."

The psychoanalysis intrigued Winter, but she forced herself not to think about it now. She had more pressing concerns than deconstructing the self-image of a terrorist mastermind. Like exactly how the hell she was going to survive the next ninety or so minutes.

Her adrenaline-enhanced planning was interrupted at the sound of panicked footfalls through the vent, heavy feet practically reverberating through the floor in their excited haste.

"Sir, one of the hostages says _Weiss Schnee_ is here," he said, loud enough that Winter could make out his every word, each of his hastily-drawn breaths.

Her heart began pounding for the first time since the initial burst of gunfire. _Weiss was here? In danger?_ Part of her wanted to scream to the heavens for having failed to know this, for having not been told that her sister would be attending alongside her. She would have reacted _so_ differently had she known. And now dozens of armed terrorists who wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep to a homicide would be searching for Weiss...

Winter forced herself to inhale, to oxygenate her brain, to _think_. While unquestionably being an ‘ _elite_ ’ even in a room chock-full of millionaires, it was hardly impossible that her own disappearance had been overlooked. Despite a surname and hair color that were equally distinctive it was hardly a rare occurrence for the elder Schnee daughter. She'd spent more than a decade completely out of the public eye in the service of her country, and her sister had long eclipsed her in fame and fortune. Even after returning to civilian life she'd assiduously avoided the limelight, fleeing the press and public like locusts, without so much as a Wikipedia article to her name. It had suited her to have Weiss take the spotlight, as burdensome as she knew the glare was.

Now she realized she'd let Weiss paint a target on herself, and illuminated it with stage lights.

" _Where_?" Adam demanded, fingers tightening around the grip of his blade.

"He saw her heading into the bathroom. With a bodyguard."

Adam nodded, slowly and calmly, but there was no missing the raise his chest rose and fell with growing excitement. "Kikalis, Tsagaan... Bring her to me," he ordered. "Alive." The grunts nodded like eager puppies, practically bouncing with anticipation, hurrying towards the bathroom as soon as their leader dismissed them.

"Oh." Adam spun around to face his minions, sounding like he needed to make one addition to his grocery list. "And kill the bodyguard."

* * *

Kikalis pushed the door of the bathroom open, awkwardly cradling the AR-15 rifle in his hands. Terrorist or not there was still a taboo against barging into the women's washrooms, and he moved with tentative steps.

"Oh Yang... oh... oh... a little lower."

He glanced over his shoulder at Tsagaan, whose wide-eyed shock was clear even through his mask.

There was a loud _thud_ against the nearest stall door, followed by a series of increasingly powerful reverberations.

"You know you like it _rough_ ," a second voice called out, teasing and feminine. Jaws dropped in incredulity.

" _Uhh-uhh-uuuuh_." Panted breaths and labored groans, two voices on the edge of ecstasy. A decade of erotic fantasies sprung to the forefront of Kikalis’ mind, pornographic videos replaying themselves unthinkingly in his head.

"Hey, uh, get out there," called out Tsagaan, only marginally less stupefied.

" _Just a second_!" An enthusiastically _chipper_ voice called out.

"What did I say about talking with your mouth full?" a half-exhausted but markedly more-chiding voice followed-up.

"Seriously, get the fuck out, now," demanded Kikalis, his erection rather undercutting his attempt at an intimidating inflection.

"Alright, Christ. The janitors are pushy around here."

Kikalis and Tsagaan stood in front of the stall door, guns held loosely at their sides. They could make out a pair of heels and pair of patent leather shoes, and hear the sounds of fabric rustling and zippers being tugged.

"Hey, uh, I think I left my shirt in the other stall," called out the nearer of the two women. "Just, um, avert your eyes for a second."

Neither man did, of course, but their capacity for rational analysis had long since left them. The stall door unlocked, and slowly swung open. Both men took a half-step forward in anticipation...

Kikalis’ face was blanketed an instant later, something black obstructing his mask, rendering him blind. Before he had a chance to think a second something _collided_ into him with the strength of a particularly-irate bull, knocking the gun out of his grip and sending it tumbling to the floor.

Tsagaan fared little better. He tried to swing his rifle into a firing stance but his guard had been completely dropped, reflexes dulled by lurid fantasies. Yang's foot kicked the barrel of his rifle before he could point it in her direction. Tsagaan at least managed to retain his grip on the gun, but Yang was atop him a moment later, bony knuckles slamming into his unprotected throat.

He choked and coughed, but not for very long, Yang driving a knee into his groin with brutal ferocity. Tsagaan toppled forward, rendered mute by agony, positioning himself at _exactly_ the right height for a whirlwind kick to the skull.

Kikalis managed to disentangle himself from the jacket that had been thrown at him, only to realize his gun had been kicked under a stall, out of reach, courtesy of the white-haired woman. He reached belatedly for the sidearm at his hip, but before he could so much as unholster the pistol Yang had turned her vengeful gaze upon him, pounding him with a flurry of blows that would have made her old Muay Thai instructor beam with pride.

Kikalis followed Tsagaan into unconsciousness a moment later, his mind never once having properly processed what exactly was attacking him. Yang delivered the final heel-palmed strike with a furious _grunt_ , panting in adrenaline-fueled exhaustion.

She grabbed the nearest rifle, checking the magazine and safety, before glancing at the door, dropping to one knee in a firing position. Weiss' eyes were locked on the crack of light beneath the door. _Surely_ someone had heard their mêlée, would be bursting through the door any second...

One minute passed. Then a second did.

Yang let out a long-held breath. "I think we're clear for the moment," she said, rising to her feet. "Are you okay?"

" _I'm_ fine," confirmed Weiss. Her voice was level and her words unwavering, but she still glistened with nervous sweat. "But _you're_ bleeding."

"Huh?" Yang glanced at herself in the mirror, giving herself a once-over for injuries with an all-too-practiced sweep of the eye. "It's nothing much," she assessed, glancing at where the skin on her knuckles and elbows had broken open. " _Damn_ I'm good."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Or they're just well-armed amateurs." She strolled over to Tsagaan, unconcerned about the blood trickling from his head. "Who are they, anyways?"

"Dunno," said Yang, shoving a confiscated pistol into her pants in a way that would've made any gun safety instructor scream. "White Fang, judging by the masks."

"I thought we had them on the run?" noted Weiss, recalling a string of triumphal press conferences various law enforcement organizations had called over the past few months.

"Guess not," Yang answered, a little moribund. She pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket, flipping open the antiquated cover. "Still no bars. Little shits must have jammers around here somewhere."

" _Uh, Adam, this is Lev. There's a police helicopter hovering maybe a hundred feet away. South, uh, south-west corner of the tower."_

Both women glanced at the walkie-talkie affixed to Bleu's shoulder. Yang hurriedly unclipped it. "Well, hopefully they weren't planning to keep this a secret," she said softly to herself, examining the device as she spoke. “Great, top-of-the-line hardware, and probably encrypted. Here's hoping they don't panic..."

" _Ignore it_ ," crackled a voice on the line, and Yang and Weiss locked eyes. They _both_ recognized the voice, and that was _not_ a good thing. From hundreds of tapes and videos over the years, from a man who threatened violence and terror, and all-too-often kept his word. _Adam_ , a monster of the highest order, usually seen against a red-and-black backdrop from a hideout in God-knew-where. " _We have the rooftop secured, and they know we have hostages. Nobody is stupid enough to do anything... heroic."_

Yang glanced out the bathroom’s window. Not at the commanding view of the city it presented, unfortunately, but at the window-washing platform hovering towards the upper edge of the pane.

Weiss caught Yang's eye. "Don't even _think_ about it!"

* * *

Adam, perhaps too his credit, perhaps not, didn’t say anything when the news of his minion’s failure reached him. And, by virtue of the position he’d settled on by the bar of the ballroom - chosen for both the cover and surface area it provided - Winter heard it too.

The terrorist was wordless for well over a minute, silent but for the rhythmic strumming of his katana’s handle. The unease from the minion-cum-messenger was practically radiant. “ _Well_.” The single syllable might as well have been a gunshot, causing the White Fang mook to startle slightly. “There’s always Plan C.”

Adam snapped his fingers, and two masked goons jogged over to him, cradling their weapons. “Gentlemen,” he said, in what he probably thought was an affable tone. “It seems the Schnees have slipped through our fingers once again.”

“What can you expect from a bunch of _pussies_ ,” one of the grunts muttered by way of witty reply, loud enough that Winter could place his accent as Scouse.

“Indeed.” Adam paused, either collecting his thoughts or for dramatic effect. “Well then, prepare to execute the first batch of hostages. Let’s see if they still refuse to ‘ _negotiate with terrorists_ ’ when the bodies are falling from ninety stories up.”

Winter managed to strangle a gasp in her throat, but the two White Fang minions didn’t. “Boss?”

The glare Adam shot his subordinate made it clear that he was _not_ in the mood to humor competing opinions. “Since it seems that we can’t dismantle the Schnee Corporate State overnight, we’ll just have to make do. I’ll settle for seeing a few of our comrades released from the unjust imprisonment so cruelly inflicted upon them.” A sadistic smirk crept across his face. “So, Murrey, Jin, how many bodies do we toss out the window before the police cave in?”

Murrey grinned. “Are we playing by _The Price is Right_ rules, or just closest to the mark?”

Winter slid back from her vantage, already steeling herself for what she knew she had to do. Cinder looked at her, expectantly, and for once Winter didn’t concern herself with the woman’s knowing expression. “Since they can’t find a Schnee, they’re going to start killing the hostages,” Winter said as a summary. “Obviously, we can’t let them do that.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” agreed Cinder, in a mocking tone suggesting she considered that actually quite a very real possibility. “I assume you have some heroic plan?” The disinterest in her voice made it sound like she was making polite small talk over cocktails. Winter began shoulder-checking the refrigeration unit out of place, allowing the two to slip back into the small kitchen. Thankfully, it was still deserted.

“Of course I have a plan,” Winter growled in response, though her nails dug into the flesh of her palm regardless. “Just stick to me and don’t say anything stupid.”

If Cinder had a retort she chose to bite it back, trailing close on Winter’s heel. Winter didn’t so much as pause for a backwards glance as she swung the door to the ballroom open, giving the nearest White Fang something akin to a heart attack.

A dozen guns swiveled in her direction a moment later, startled shouts and cries bombarding the Schnee Dust Company’s _former_ heir-apparent. Adam showed no signs of shock but took a few steps forward, the blade of his katana inching further out of its sheath with each footfall.

Winter’s hands were already in the air, palms flashed in a display of surrender. She locked eyes with the White Fang’s leader, refusing to tremble even as his blade left its sheath entirely, cutting through the air with a menacing _swish_.

“ _Adam_ ,” she called out, her voice level even as her heart pounded against her chest. “Here’s your Schnee.”


	4. Big Damn Heroes

Weiss Schnee had played Seven Minutes in Heaven exactly once in her life, thanks to an unholy alliance of alcohol and peer pressure, and - surprising no one who knew her in the slightest - hated all four-hundred and twenty seconds of it. The vaguely exotic sense of mystery and ‘naughtiness’ immediately gave way to annoyance as tongues and elbows jostled in blinded clumsiness. To make matters worse she’d felt no real attraction, either physically or emotionally, to her similarly-sequestered lover, and nothing in their touch or taste had been enough to dispel the lingering grumpiness. Having Yang locked in the janitor’s closet with her was, by some measure, a small improvement since the last time she’d found herself so trapped, in that the aforementioned physical and emotional attraction were unquestionably present. If she had to be trapped with _anybody_ , then it was certainly preferable for that person to have a scent she’d learned to love.

Though unlike the last time she’d been locked in a closet, there were two unconscious White Fang terrorists pooled at their feet. So it wasn’t really an apples to apples comparison, she conceded.

One of said grunts stirred distantly beneath her. Both had been thoroughly immobilized by a roll of duct tape Yang had happened upon in the janitor’s closet, into which she had proceeded to drag her two captives and one protectee. It had been a long time since Yang had resorted to hiding in a closet, and she not exactly gleaming with professional pride at her performance so far.

“Light,” Yang muttered, a note of irritation slipping out. Weiss hurriedly re-focused her attention, directing the cone of light pouring out of her iPhone to the wall. Yang had found a cleaning schedule attached to the inside wall of the closet, and was now scribbling all over the back of the sheet with a cheap blue pen, enjoying about the same amount of illumination as a medieval monk would have.

The walkie-talkies buzzed to life again, though the volume had been turned down to the lowest possible setting above MUTED. Yang paused for a moment, closing her eyes as if to enhance her hearing, then scrawled a few more words on the sheet with a hand that made doctors look like calligraphists.

Weiss, to the benefit of Yang’s already-overstressed mind, did not need to ask what she was doing. That much was obvious - Yang was trying to tally up how many White Fang grunts they were up against, and where in the building they were positioned. A small diagram, meant to show the emergency exits in the event of a fire, had already been sprinkled with Xs and dotted lines, the bodyguard doing her best to build a tactical map under less-than-ideal conditions.

“Okay.” Yang took a step back, grinning at her handiwork despite the gravity of their situation. “I’ve got good news and bad news.” Weiss raised an expectant eyebrow. “Bad news - we’ve got something like thirty hostiles, all of which I’m guessing are armed and more than a little annoyed about the absence of one Ice Queen.”

Weiss rolled her eyes. The possibility of an untimely demise didn’t make the nickname any more endearing.

“Good news - their comm discipline is shit. I’ve seem Girl Scouts more organized than these guys. No code names, hell, no codes. If we speak into one of these, nobody has any way of checking our identity.”

“Couldn’t they all recognize each other’s voices?” Weiss asked, dropping into her all-too-familiar role as Devil’s Advocate.

Yang shrugged. “Maybe,” she conceded, “but given the sound quality I’ve heard so far, I doubt it. There are also like at least six women, so _that_ won’t be a dead giveaway.”

“Oh, good, the global terrorist organization is more diverse than my father’s Board of Directors.”

Yang suppressed a follow-up taunt, but only barely. “Now, we know they’ve got all the stairwells and elevators guarded, and the rooftop locked down. _But_ there’s a freight elevator behind the kitchens, _here_ ,” Yang pointed to a completely blank spot on the floor plan, “which it doesn’t sound like they’ve secured. I think.”

“We heard them pull the fire alarms, though,” Weiss pointed out. “Unless you have a fireman’s key, I doubt we can get it moving.”

Yang grimaced. “Ah, right.” Weiss’ hand came to rest on her arm. “Should have had Blake make me a copy of her tools.” She shook her head. “Well, I mean, we only need to get them away from one of the stairwells, either _this_ one or _that_ one. And we _do_ have two walkie-talkies, so confusing the hell out of ‘em shouldn’t be too hard.” She glanced conspicuously down at the pistol tucked into her waistband. “Or, you know, Plan B.”

Weiss was nodding in agreement, but Yang knew her too well to miss the way her whole body seemed to cool a few degrees. “And that’s it, then? Our escape?”

“Kinda anticlimactic, I know,” Yang said with a grin. “Just leant my rappelling gear to Ruby, sorry.”

“And… everyone else?”

Weiss knew the answer before she asked, and a flicker of sorrow passed across Yang’s face, like the moon eclipsing the sun. “My job is to get you out of here, Weiss, and that’s damn well what I’m going to do.” Yang spoke softly, but there was a fiery determination simmering in her throat. “We get out, we get safe, and we tell the cops downstairs everything we know. That’s as helpful as we can be.”

“I know,” Weiss whispered, as if there’d ever been any real question. She sighed. “Of course, if this had happened around the time I’d first met you, I’m pretty sure you’d be charging out there with a gun in either hand by now.” Yang let out a small laugh at that. “When did you become the mature one?”

“Probably sometime between the millionth and zillionth time you called me an idiot,” Yang replied with an easy grin. She had to break Weiss’ gaze, though, suddenly finding it too difficult to hold.

_When I found something worth being around a long time for._

The walkie-talkies crackled to life.

“Attention, brothers and sisters,” came the nasally sneer of Adam, recognizable even through the machine’s distorting effects. “I have some _extremely_ exciting news to announce.”

“That’s odd,” muttered Yang, picking up the device. She tapped the LCD screen with one finger, where an icon of an open lock had just blinked into existence. “He’s disabled the encryption.”

“Something he wants heard, then,” Weiss whispered in reply, but her voice trailed off as the machine hummed to life once more.

“We have captured the… _charming_ … Winter Schnee, and are holding her separate from the rest of the hostages.” Weiss’ heart felt like it’d gone arrhythmic. “While she’s not who we came here for, I think she’ll serve our purposes _just fine_.”

Yang could practically hear the venom dripping from his words. In the darkness of the closet, pierced only by a thin ray of light from Weiss’ phone, she found the love of her life and wrapped powerful arms around her.

“ _If the police try anything, we’ll see just how blue-blooded these Schnees really are_.”

“...Remember when I said not to try anything heroic?” Weiss’ voice cut like a stiletto through the silence.

A grin, bordering on manic, crossed Yang’s face.

“ _Nope_.”

* * *

Lev was excited. This was her first _real_ mission with the White Fang, her first assignment that was more than shaking down small businesses or vandalizing corporate property. She had a real gun - _two_ in fact - body armor, communications equipment, an _official_ mask... and now she was going to get payback on the Schnee family itself. The possibility was _so_ much more tantalizing than their usual run-of-the-mill chaos and destruction. The SDC was so large and diverse that no matter what damage they inflicted on it the corporate machinery seemed to keep chugging away without so much as flicker in share value. Now... now she had the chance to actually _hurt_ them.

" _Control to Rooftop, be advised that there are believed to be two targets on the loose_ ," a voice called in. Lev snorted a little at that. They'd assigned her to the helipad, which was really little more than glorified sentry duty, away from the real action. Because she was still 'green'. Judging by what apparently happened to Kikalis and Tsagaan, it was obvious that the 'pros' weren't all what they were cracked up to be. " _There’s a broken window in the bathroom, and we think the targets escaped to a higher floor. One of them is believed to be Weiss Schnee. Boss wants her alive. Other target is expendable._ "

Lev sighed and returned to her 'patrol', if you could call wandering a few dozen square feet that. She was here basically to ensure that the local police wouldn't try landing on the rooftop, and the White Fang had more than sufficient firepower to effect that. None of the nearest buildings were close enough for even a professional marksman to hit them from, certainly not with the strong winds the city was famous for. So unless the local police were willing to try something _really_ ballsy - and they almost certainly weren't - she wouldn’t be seeing any real action tonight. Like so many office drones the world over, Lev was making a show of looking busy.

A loud _honk_ off to the side of the skyscraper caught her attention. Checking the safety on her gun, Lev wandered over in the direction of the lip of the building, her brain struggling to make sense of the noise. Another minion, Churiurdin, a balding forty-something-year old who’d wanted oh-so-badly to be a mentor figure to her, fell into step beside her. Lev walked forwarded as if shod with blinders, not wanting to give Churiurdin any semblance of an excuse to ‘assist’ her with anything. Some things never changed...

Lev’s pace slowed as she approached the edge of the building. There was a small guardrail but it seemed almost pathetic given the heights it was nominally safeguarding them from. When a strong north-northwestern wind swept the tower the iron frame seemed to rattle. Lev had a fear of heights.

“Is that the, uh, window washer?” Churiurdin asked, gesturing to a small, crane-like device which seemed to be making a spooling noise, its cables retracting with a groaning _whir_.

Lev looked at him like he was an idiot, though the intensity of her glare was dampened slightly by the visage-covering masks they all wore. “ _Obviously_ ,” she declared, mostly in the hope of subduing his ego through scorn. Lev paused, considering just what exactly she was taking in. And remembering the message that had just been blasted over the White Fang secure communications channel. “Wow.”

Churiurdin clued in a heartbeat later. “Huh.” He checked the safety on his rifle, making sure it was _off_. “Fucking idiots.”

“Yeah.” Lev mimicked his gesture, though she still had to glance to double-check that she was looking at the right spot on her gun. “Do we, um, just _shoot_ it?”

Churiurdin shrugged. “I suppose we should check first, just to be safe. I’ll radio it in.”

“Gotcha,” Lev agreed. The irony that by _‘safe’_ Churiurdin meant ‘ _safe to shoot at and kill_ ’ was lost on both terrorists.

Churiurdin stopped walking as they came within the last few feet from the railing, earning him another masked glare. Because if there was any danger then he’d obviously prefer _she_ be the one to meet it head-on. _Asshole_.

There was no point checking, she knew. She’d been on the rooftop all night, there was no way any of her companions could have raised, lowered and then raised the platform again without her noticing. Some of the captives - presumably the ones who’d taken out Kikalis and Tsagaan - had broken out a window, and were trying to escape to the roof. It was idiotic, the kind of lunacy dreamed up by someone who’d watched too many late night movie marathons. One of the first things Adam did with the new recruits was _thoroughly_ disabuse them of whatever notions of combat they’d picked up from Hollywood or _Call of Duty_. But it was _exactly_ the kind of idiocy someone fearing for their life just might try...

Sucking in a deep breath through gritted teeth, Lev inched the final feet to the edge. The machine continued _whirring_ unfailingly beside her, raising the lift at a snail’s pace. Her heart began pounding. A slender finger curled around the trigger, the tension in her body already causing her to _pull_ the trigger slightly inwards. She was sweating despite the night chill.

_Three… two… one…_

She fired without opening her eyes, sending a trio of bullets racing to the platform down below in an angry staccato. She practically tripped over herself as she stumbled back from the edge, loud noises and bright lights startling her adrenaline-primed brain. Lev was distantly aware of Churiurdin retreating behind her, and the panicked shouts of the half-dozen grunts guarding the rooftop with her.

The platform had reached the rooftop before she caught her breath again, fear having constricted her lungs like a snake. “It’s alright!” Lev called out, trying frantically to wave her companions off.

She glanced back at the platform. It was, as the slower, less reflex-dominated part of her brain had come to realize, completely empty. Tip-toeing over to it, she saw that a small control panel had been carelessly pried open, and what looked like an elastic hair band was being used to keep a lever jammed in the upright position.

Lev breathed a sigh of relief, despite her own idiocy. She hadn’t shot anyone. She hadn’t even been in any real danger, apart from perhaps tripping over her shoelaces and tumbling to her doom. There were no ‘heroes’ charging her position.

“It’s okay,” she called out, finally able to breathe again. The cold night air felt like little needles in her lungs, and she loved it. “Just jumping at shadows.”

Their radios crackled to life as one. “What’s going on? I heard gunfire?” called out a static-choked voice.

Another voice chimed in. “Gunshots on the helipad. Team Four, please state your status.” Followed by a third voice, and a fourth.

Lev scrambled to find her radio, gloved hands fumbling slightly with the tiny buttons. “Uh, I’m on the rooftop, sorry about that,” Lev apologized, a proper blush spreading across her face for the first time. “Sorry, though I saw something, but it was nothing. False alarm.”

* * *

...Several hundred feet away, with a shit-eating grin on her face, Yang finally chimed into a conversation she’d spent the better part of an hour eavesdropping on.

“ _Negative_ , _negative_ , we have multiple foot-mobiles on the rooftop,” she cried out, the excitement coming quite naturally to her voice. “They’ve captured a walkie.”

Yang nodded in Weiss’ direction, and her girlfriend queued up a short noise from her phone. The sound of gunfire suddenly flooded the channel, courtesy of one of Yang’s ringtones.

Yang switched to Tsagaan’s device. “Confirmed, we’re taking fire. SWAT helo at seven o’clock and-”

She killed the device, smiling at the chaos she could easily envision in her head.

“Well, that somehow went even better than expected,” Yang summarized, the grin still affixed to her face. “Now, where were we?” Yang glanced over her shoulder at Weiss, and her girlfriend’s glare brought her crashing back down to reality.

“We’re in an elevator shaft, Yang,” Weiss stated, completely deadpan, without so much as a whiff of levity in her voice. The heiress glared daggers at the lightless silo they’d found themselves in. “And I can practically _feel_ the mesothelioma this asbestos-filled _death trap_ is giving me.”

“You said the window washer was a death trap, too!” protested Yang, feebly, as she returned her attention to task at hand.

“It _was_ a death trap!” Weiss half-shouted in reply. Yang winced, expecting Weiss’ voice to echo as if in a canyon, but the loud _whirring_ of unseen machinery muted her scorn somewhat. “The gunshots just proved that! Your so-called ‘escape plan’ implicitly vindicates my judgement!”

Yang waved off the fairly-reasonable critique and turned her attention to the ladder. “Hey, Ice Queen, this is the most not-a-death-trap escape plan you’re going to see today.” Weiss chewed the inside of her cheek. She _hated_ the nickname, and Yang knew well enough not to taunt her with it unless she was annoyed, bordering on irate. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink when we’re outta here.”

Their escape (if, as Weiss had repeatedly noted, it could really be called that), had been made entirely possible by the sloppy radio discipline of the White Fang terrorists they were in the process of oh-so-deftly evading. After having corralled all the hostages into the ballroom and posted a few guards at the stairwells, the White Fang grunts had been content not to bother with rigorous patrols of the interior. It was sloppy, it was amateurish, but as a friend had once explained to Yang over a cup of tea, the White Fang survived on amateurs. Filled its ranks with people with petty grievances against perceived injustices and little else in the way of experience. The White Fang recruiters cast a wide net and didn’t particularly worry about instilling their foot-soldiers with a professional mindset. Quantity has a quality of its own, as the old saying went.

Adam, of course, was another beast entirely. The fact that Yang hadn’t the slightest clue as to where he and his small coterie of elite bodyguards were in the building was not doing anything for her blood pressure.

Weiss hadn’t exactly _approved_ of her plan to shatter the bathroom window, jerry-rig the window washer and then slip out to the cargo elevator. Weiss didn’t approve of a lot of Yang’s plans, though, and quite frankly the bodyguard was running out of options. Hiding in the janitor’s closet, admittedly, had proven surprisingly viable, though Weiss would never have assented to any plan that would lead to them listening to Winter Schnee being executed over walkie-talkies. So, in short, they had gotten lucky, slipping between the infrequent patrols to find a cargo elevator tucked in the middle of nowhere.

Thankfully, the cargo elevator had a small room almost to itself, presumably so it could be hidden behind closed doors if there was a need for a guest to wander ‘backstage’, as it were. Yang had managed to bar the outer doors with the disassembled legs of an office chair before turning to the cargo elevator proper, prying its heavy metal doors open with a powerful _push_ of her shoulder. A tinny bell had begun ringing in impotent protest, and Weiss thanked the stars that nobody in the White Fang had come barreling down on them. Seeing as she didn’t really feel like re-enacting the ending of _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_. The elevator car was resting a level below them, and Yang had helped her down onto it with all the elegance of a gentleman assisting a lady from a carriage.

Their options, admittedly, were somewhat limited. They couldn’t go _down_ because (a) the car was in the way (b) the emergency shut-off would prevent them from moving said car and (c) even if they could’ve phased through solid metal they’d _still_ be facing a descent of something like ninety stories. Yang wasn’t afraid of heights by any stretch of the imagination, but that was not a climb she looked lightly upon.

And, besides, Winter was _up_. Where exactly they couldn’t tell, since whatever mooks Adam had escorting Winter had had the good sense not to broadcast the position of their most valuable asset, but it clearly wasn’t the same floor the gala had been on.

They ascended the small utility ladder in relative silence, though Yang was fairly certain she could still make out Weiss’ muttered gripes re: the grime, their life-or-death circumstances notwithstanding. It went without saying that Weiss’ Milan-designed, several-thousand-euro-costing dress wasn’t going to be seeing the light of polite society ever again.

Upon reaching the next floor, Yang shimmied over in the shaft as best she could, one hand gripped around the rung of the ladder and the other tightly clutching her pistol. There was another elevator door directly beside her, but prying it open was going to be a bloody nightmare given her position, from which she could generate almost no leverage. So, instead, Yang took the easy way out. She banged on the door and called for someone to open it.

The horrified expression on Weiss’ face suggested that Yang had just begun describing their preferred oral sex activities in intimate detail to Jacques Schnee. That expression had the problematic effect of giving Yang exactly the kind of reaction she subconsciously wanted, and encouraged the bodyguard to pound the door again.

“Alright, _yesus_ , what the hell’s the problem?” called out a voice from the other side of the door, male and twenty-something and not particularly bone-chilling.

“Open the fucking door,” Yang shouted back, the impatience in her voice not feigned in the slightest. “Adam _specifically_ ordered all the doors be barred open, you fucking nitwit.”

The fusillade of scorn was enough to get results, and within seconds a crack of light split the door asunder. A lanky man in a mask groaned with obvious consternation as he forced the doors open, then stared down the shaft at the enigmatic voice which had been berating him.

A monster-masked woman glared back at him. The real White Fang grunt glanced down at the imposter grunt, his mind desperately trying to determine if it’d ever encountered such luscious blonde hair on a terrorist before. _Surely_ he’d have remembered, wouldn’t he, but…

“Get someone to help you keep it open,” Yang barked, the command in her tone enough to short-circuit the inductive conclusion the minion’s brain had been slowly plodding towards.

The grunt blinked. “Yeah, um, you _see_ anyone else here?”

The comment had been intended to express vague annoyance at the fact that the grunt had been stationed out by the cargo elevator all by himself, in a windowless room about as far away from the action as was possible in the middle of a hostage crisis. It had the collateral benefit of providing Yang with exactly the tactical intel she needed at the moment.

“Take my hand,” Yang called out, one grease & sweat-stained palm approaching the guard’s shins. “I need help climbing out.”

The gears started clicking in the guard’s head. Or at the very least, the tooth of one gear caught another. Two cogs begun to cognate.

“Hey, uh, you got a name?”

From just about anyone else the question might have sounded like a come-on, or even a threat. From a mouth still ringed with acne it sounded more like a stammered schoolboy trying to buy condoms at the pharmacy.

“I’ve got several,” answered Yang with a grin that should have set his mind afire with fear. Instead he just stammered. “But you can call me _sir_.”

Yang’s left hand darted out with a speed one could only blink at, confirming the absence of a jock strap and grasping its prize(s). The grunt let out something like a choked whimper before Yang’s right hand - the one still grasping a rung on the ladder - _let go_.

* * *

Yang poked her head, _sans_ confiscated mask, over the threshold of the elevator doors, confirming that they were in a room almost identical to the one they had entered from, though this one was packed to the brim with folded-up tables, chairs, and the flattened remains of a dozen cardboard boxes. They appeared to be right at the corner of an L-shaped junction of corridors, a darkened hallway off to one side, a lit one to the other.

“Was that _strictly_ necessary?” asked Weiss, unable to keep the distaste from her voice regarding Yang’s choice of grappling strategies.

“No,” Yang conceded, unapologetically. She spun around and crouched on her haunches, proffering a hand to help the heiress clamber out of the shaft. “But it was funny.”


	5. Queens and Pawns

“I really could do this all night,” Yang mused, ostensibly to herself, as she surveyed her handiwork, a break room which she’d whipped through like a hurricane. A hurricane would’ve been gentler on the White Fang guards that had had the misfortune of occupying it when Yang Xiao Long entered. Then she cast a telling glance over her shoulder, eager to cash in on whatever romantic bonus evolutionary psychology was going to give her for protecting Weiss from the scary dangers of the dark.

“At this rate, we’re going to,” Weiss muttered, darkly, dashing Yang’s hopes of romance against the rocks of reality. Weiss crouched over one of the guards, who was beginning to stir slightly as his powers of speech gradually returned to him. “ _Hey_!” Weiss slapped his cheek none-too-gently to rouse him from his beating-induced slumber. At least _he’d_ get to wake up. “Where’s Winter?”

“Mmrgh?” The guard made vaguely confused noises, but unfortunately (for him) Weiss was in no mood to coax the answer out of him with patience and kindness.

“ _Winter Schnee_ ,” Weiss re-iterated, as if speaking to a particularly unruly child. “Your friends took her. Where.”

Yang felt a chill wind its way down her spine, freezing her to her very core. Weiss Schnee was usually content to let _tsundere_ -style annoyance and the occasional biting remark be the verbalization of her displeasure. Sometimes that anger boiled over into screaming and shouting, which was definitely not a safe situation for anyone else to be in. The rarest - and unquestionably scariest - level of Weiss Schnee Anger was when she went full Ice Queen, when she embraced the most terrifying elements of her public persona. Her voice dropped to a low whisper, devoid of the faintest hint of warmth or mercy.

...“Dunno…” the grunt half-mumbled back, though there was no missing the evasion in his tone and on his face.

“Yang, give me your gun.”

The Ice Queen spoke, and what was a mere mortal to do but obey? Yang slid her pistol into the Ice Queen’s open palm, butt first, almost without thinking.

In a rare admission of her own shortcomings, Weiss knew she didn’t know a lot about guns, particularly compared to her girlfriend. Her weapons of choice were _sabre_ and _épée_ , if ritualized dueling could be counted as a form of combat. She was distantly envious of her elder sister’s quiet competence with the little machines ( _far_ preferable to Yang’s attitude of chest-thumping bravado). But promises to each other notwithstanding, the Schnee sisters had never scheduled a promised trip to a firing range, for Weiss to learn the basics of gun safety, if nothing more.

The Ice Queen flipped the safety off. _That_ much was easy to figure out. The motion did not pass unnoticed by her captive. “Ten seconds.”

“Look, lady, they don’t tell us nothing. And even if I could guess I wouldn’t tell-”

Skipping the countdown, the Ice Queen held the pistol perpendicular to her body and squeezed off a shot. Whether she’d been aiming for the vending machine or just firing blindly was a mystery to Yang. Regardless, the machine spat out a single can, then died. The noise had nearly deafened everyone in the room, and if their captive’s eardrums weren’t ruptured Yang would file it with the Vatican as minor miracle. She let out a half-formed curse in shock, then hoped against hope that nobody _else_ had heard that. _Somehow_.

“Jesus _Christ_ that hurts,” the White Fang minion shouted, before the barrel of a pistol digging into his forehead silenced him.

“Where are they moving my sister? Next one goes through your skull.”

“Hey, Weiss, maybe you should take a step back and-”

“-and when I want your opinion on matters of my _family_ , I’ll ask you. Until then: dismissed.” The Ice Queen’s eyes never once wavered from her prey.

“Look, man, I can’t stop her when she’s like this.” Yang pleaded with the terrorist. “She’s going to do something crazy.” She poured every ounce of conviction into her voice, and if she was being honest with herself, that wasn’t hard to do.

Weiss wasn’t the type to endorse torturing her enemies or executing them in cold blood (whatever the blogosphere might insinuate). In theory, at least. Yang hadn’t exactly seen Weiss being given a lot of opportunities to put her philosophy to the test. She’d deduced that it was one of the few points of disagreement between the sisters of the Schnee dynasty. In a desperate situation like the one they’d found themselves in tonight, though... 

The fire was in the Ice Queen’s eyes, an inferno ensconced in a glacier. Her finger curled around the trigger.

Anything was possible in their present situation, Yang knew. They’d already been attacked, fled for their lives, and now the only family Weiss gave a damn about was in clear and present danger. It was enough to push anyone past the point of reasonableness. Into an adrenaline-fueled mindset where principles could be sequestered by necessity and regret banished to sleepless nights ahead. Yang had been there before.

“Five… four… three… two…”

“Two floors up! I swear! I mean, I think!” the grunt stammered out.

“Explain,” Weiss demanded. Her tone was no less frigid, though her posture had relaxed ever-so-slightly, her muscles uncoiling almost imperceptibly.

“Nobody tells me shit,” the terrorist pleaded, tears beginning to well in his eyes as he contemplated the possibility of non-existence. “But they’ve been moving everyone around. All of Adam’s top people. And the people with cameras. I think they’re staging a vid, or something.”

Weiss exhaled through her nose, a particular type of snort Yang had learned to associate with _scheming_. Weiss slid a few inches back from her captive, eyes drifting downwards as her brain began racing through plans and possibilities.

“So, um… we’re cool?” asked the grunt, derailing Weiss’ train-of-thought and earning a sanguine glare for it.

“Well, seeing as you had every intention of aiding and abetting a conspiracy to _kidnap and murder my sister_ , no, _sir_ , we are _not_ ‘cool’.” The man gulped. “Yang, take care of him for me, would you?”

Four eyes swiveled to gawk at the Ice Queen. “Uhh…. you mean…”

Weiss rolled her eyes. “No, _Yang_ , I just meant do whatever kung fu I pay you for and knock him out.”

Yang blinked. “Okay, first off - that’s not really how it works,” the bodyguard began explaining. “ _Second_ , it’s mostly Muay Thai, not kung fu. _Third_ , not calling you a racist, but that _was_ kind of a-”

“-He’s getting away,” Weiss interrupted, managing to sound bored as she did.

And, sure enough, the grunt was half-sliding, half-shuffling a few inches away from Weiss, her words causing him to spring to his feet just in time for a roundhouse kick to the head, which dropped him into blissful unconsciousness.

Yang blinked again. “Okay, to be fair, it doesn’t _normally_ work like that,” she amended. With one finger she poked at his cheek, eliciting not even a faint twitch of subconscious response.

Weiss shook her head. “Explain it to me later, Yang,” she requested, staring up at the ceiling as if planning to bore a tunnel through it with her mind. “When this is over.”

“Well, when this is over... you’ll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company,” replied Yang. With a bob her head she pointed at the vending machine, which just minutes ago Weiss had ballistically penetrated.

It took several seconds for her to make sense of it, and then Weiss groaned a groan that seemed to echo through the building. “Really, Yang?”

“Hey!” Two hands were raised defensively. “It’s a joke! A reference to the-”

“Believe me, I _got_ the reference.”

* * *

Two women knelt on the floor of a carpeted hallway, surrounded by men with guns and masks. Having been separated from the rest of the hostages, Winter and Cinder had been escorted up one of the emergency stairwells, up to a small floor filled mostly with machinery and a few offices to facilitate the maintenance of the skyscraper itself. Their hands were bound behind their backs with white zip-ties, plastic digging into flesh, but they had been otherwise been unmolested, apart from mercifully professional friskings.

“As plans go,” murmured Cinder, leaning in conspiratorially to whisper in her fellow captive’s ear, “I must say that I’ve come to expect better from you, Winter.”

Winter resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “We had no weapons, no line to the outside, no means of escape. _This_ plan at least saved the lives of a few hostages for a few hours. What more could you ask for?”

“Self-preservation, perhaps?” Cinder replied, easily. “With your genetic inheritance, really, I would assume it should just come naturally.”

Winter shook her head, returning her attention to the scene before her. A few dozen feet away, Adam was holding council with a half-dozen of his minions, saying nothing, fingers steepled beneath his nose in a timeless posture of deep contemplation. What he was hearing, and thinking, Winter couldn’t tell. But Adam had never been the type to take advice from his subordinates. That his instincts and intellect were better than most had served him well in his burgeoning career as a terrorist mastermind, but Winter had little doubt that it would come back and bite him in the ass someday.

In the meantime, Winter had more immediate concerns she needed to address. And the first item on her mental agenda - as much as Miss Fall insinuated to the contrary - was figuring out how to survive the next few minutes. Winter leaned her head against the wall in what she hoped was perceived as a gesture of exhaustion, though she was actually trying to dislodge one of the hairpins keeping an elaborate bun in place. Given how fickle the little pins usually were, Winter found herself barely suppressing grunts of annoyance when it seemed like nothing short of banging her skull against the wall was going to knock any of them loose.

Adam took that opportunity to emerge from his impromptu conference, having waited a few moments to give his minions time to disperse. His expression was stone-faced as always, and he moved with the confidence of a man completely comfortable inflicting horrendous violence upon others.

“You.”

Winter tilted her head, before realizing that Adam was not addressing _her_ but the woman _next to_ her. Cinder Fall blinked once and then glanced in Adam’s direction, as if interrupted whilst deep in thought.

Adam crossed over to stand before Cinder, gently strumming the hilt of his katana as he moved. Winter was beginning to think that this was either a nervous tick or an intimidation tactic, given that he never seemed to strum when he was by himself. Some treasonous part of her unconscious mind was noting that, if it really _was_ an intimidation tactic, then it was a fairly effective one. Everyone in Winter’s line of work had seen just what _exactly_ Adam could do with that blade.

“Me?” Cinder’s voice was filled with feigned innocence and mock obsequiousness, like a bright-faced schoolgirl being called on by the teacher in class. Winter could tell that the attitude didn’t suit her.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

That caused Winter’s head to snap around, but by the time her eyes found Cinder’s face the veil of enigma had already been lowered. Cinder’s expression was once more a perfectly opaque poker face.

“I don’t believe so,” Cinder replied, every syllable spoken carefully so as not to betray a thought or feeling. “I never forget a face.” She paused, a ghost of a grin stealing across her lips. “Or a mask.”

“ _Hm_.” A grunt was Adam’s only answer, but from what of his face was visible it was clear that Cinder’s response hadn’t entirely satisfied him. Or so Winter interpreted.

“Split them up,” the terrorist mastermind instructed after a minute’s mental musing. “Hawk, take Cinder to position 1-Bravo. Zimnyak, escort Miss Schnee to the conference room on the west side of the building.”

“Why?”

In a strange moment of synergy, Winter, Cinder and Adam all frowned at the exact same time, none of them expecting a faceless grunt to inquire as to the reason for his orders. The recruit must have been greener than even Winter’s most optimistic estimates.

Ever-so-slightly to his credit, Adam didn’t snap at the subordinate, though the grip around his katana was definitely what one would call ‘white-knuckled’.

“That room is the only one on this level with floor-to-ceiling windows,” Adam explained, his tone suggesting he was talking to an unruly seven-year old while trying not to lose his temper. “We want to make sure the police get a good look at the Family Jewel we’ve just stolen.”

“And here I was expecting you to just Tweet about it,” Winter said, unable to keep the snark inside her. In-between acts of barbarism and savagery Adam was known to tweet like a teenager on amphetamines, clogging the tubes of the Internet with hate-filled threats and vitriolic calls for revolution, at least before Twitter inevitably deleted his accounts. The game of digital whack-a-mole would resume mere hours later.

Adam smiled, however faintly, at Winter’s joke. The hostage actually exhaled at that. At least Adam wasn’t _completely_ without any capacity for self-deprecating humor. That was one of the warning signs for going full psycho, she was fairly sure.

Which was why his backhanded slap caught her so completely off-guard. Adam had moved so quickly and so unexpectedly that Winter had barely had time to tense, his gloved hand impacting her face with an echoing _slap_. Winter managed to stifle any exclamation of pain, sinking her teeth into her lower lip. It _hurt_ , there was no denying that, but she’d endured far greater pains over the years, and she had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of a whimper. Instead she focused on the pain itself, on the stinging sensation on her cheek. Winter focused her attention on her struck skin until her mind could feel a dozen patches of needles, reducing the pain to mere sensory data. It helped, at least a little.

“Listen here, _Schnee_ ,” barked Adam. His hand found her jaw, wrenching her gaze into his. “From now on: you are _mine_. You do as _I_ command. Is that understood?”

“ _Perfectly_ ,” replied Winter, her tone an icicle, sharp and cold.

_It just means I’m looking forward to killing you_ personally.


	6. Improv Class

The pounding on the door tore Yang from her stupor. She hadn’t realized how tired she was until she’d realized she was practically dozing off. _Passing out_ was probably a more apt descriptor.

“Hey, what’s going on in there!” came a voice a few feet away, muffled only slightly by the door between Yang and the speaker. The break room she and Weiss had previously burst into was presently secured only by a push-button lock, and a folding chair wedged beneath the door handle in a manner Yang _hoped_ but didn’t really _believe_ would slow would-be attackers down.

Weiss shot Yang a look that, while not panicked, was definitely alert to their immediate danger. Shame she hadn’t thought about that danger _before_ the aforementioned display of _machismo_ , in which she’d felt the need to put a bullet through a vending machine. Yang waved her back with her hand.

“Uh, everything’s under control. Situation normal,” Yang called back doing her best to sound authoritative. They could always double-back to the elevator shaft and try to circle around on the east side of the building, assuming they could get past the-

“What happened?” The voice came in two places - through the wall, and over a walkie-talkie clipped to Yang’s belt that had suddenly crackled to life.

“Uhhhhhh….” Yang glanced helplessly at Weiss, who replied with a glare that could only mean ‘ _what the hell do you think_ I _can do?_ “We had a slight, uh, weapons malfunction. Everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you.” Yang paused, reasonably sure that she could _feel_ the extreme skepticism radiating through the door. “How are you?”

“We’re sending a squad in,” called the voice back over the walkie.

“Uh, negative, negative. We had a gas pipe leak here. Give us a few minutes to seal it up. Large leak, very dangerous.”

“Who is this? What’s your name?”

“Uh.”

Yang put two bullets through the door at approximately chest-height. She had no idea if she’d actually hit anyone with that blind expenditure of precious ammunition, but the panicked shouts gave her some cause for hope.

She turned around to face Weiss, opening her mouth for yet another witty one-liner and-

“ _Get down_!” Weiss shouted, tackling Yang to the floor a moment before the room they were in was raked by several guns firing on full automatic.

Unsurprisingly, the interior walls of the office rooms hadn’t been made of particularly sturdy stuff; they might as well have been lace veils for all they did against NATO rounds. Plaster, insulation, dust, and a ceiling tile fell on the two women as the gunshots echoed in their ears, sparks flying as the bullets ricocheted off appliances and plumbing.

As soon as she could hear herself think again, Yang was scrambling onto her hands and knees, Weiss a half-second behind her. They kept low to the ground, scampering back down into the elevator bay. One of the grunts fired two rounds into the door handle behind them, but as Yang knew (and from experience, no less), all that did was jam the locking mechanism. Not that that would delay them for long, but every second counted right now.

They crawled their way back to the elevator bay, Yang sweeping the adjacent hallway to confirm that no baddies were barreling down on them from the opposite direction. The light fixtures in the hallways appeared to be motion-triggered, for energy efficiency, and right now that act of eco-friendliness was telling Yang there was nobody there. For the next few seconds, at least.

The bodyguard returned her attention to the employee lounge, shielding herself as best as possible behind the doorframe to the elevator bay, lying prone on the ground. Something was digging into her ribcage but she didn’t have time to investigate. The door on the other end of the room was kicked open, and Yang squeezed her trigger _once_ , the first terrorist over the threshold collapsing like a sack of potatoes.

_What a weird expression_ , Yang thought to herself, some part of her subconscious finding time for wordplay even as bullets singed the air around her. _Are potato bags_ known _for being dropped?_

She fired two more rounds, hitting nothing, and emptying her magazine in the process. She dared leaning out long enough to slam the door shut, before swapping out her depleted magazine for her (only) spare. All she hoped was that the White Fang would be a little more cautious going forward.

“Well,” said Weiss, managing to keep her voice level even as men with guns began closing in on them. “That could have gone better.”

* * *

Experience mattered.

When the sounds of gunshots - fired from the other end of the floor - reached Winter’s ears and those of her captors, it took Winter’s brain somewhere around a tenth of a second to understand what was happening. It would take the men escorting her the better part of two whole seconds to reach the same conclusion. And in that difference, Winter _moved_.

The hairpin that Adam had oh-so-thoughtfully dislodged when he’d slapped her across the face had made its way to her fingers, and Winter had been in the middle of trying to figure out how best to slide the little needle between the teeth of the zip tie pinning her wrists behind her back. It was not a particularly difficult feet, certainly not for someone who’d accomplished it on more than one occasion, but it was difficult to perform blindly and discreetly, particularly when there was an armed guard two feet behind her who she was fairly certain was staring at her ass.

So she had to make do without it.

In the blink of an eye, Winter’s leg flashed out in a strike that would’ve made her old Okinawan _sensei_ blush with pride. Pivoting ever-so-slightly, Winter’s right leg shot out from behind her at something approaching a forty-five degree angle to the floor. She’d been considering slipping out of her stiletto heels, the better to better run and fight in, but doing so in the presence of her captors would have been sending up a signal flare as to her intentions. And now, for once in her life, she was immensely thankful for the fashionable dictates of feminine footwear.

The tip of her stiletto caught the guard standing behind her right in the neck, and in an instant he was grasping at his throat, sputtering and choking. Normally Winter would’ve gone for something less _flashy_ , like his groin or solar plexus, but the guard might have had armor on the former and definitely had it on the latter. So throat it was.

The guard in front of her, Zim-something, spun around, but he’d made the mistake of allowing her to get _far_ too close. On the occasions that she wore a dress it was usually remarked that her legs were weapons as lethal as any guns. Unfortunately for the target of her wrath, that statement was not as much of an analogy as he needed it to be.

With a swift kick Winter sent the rifle clattering from his hands, the gun bouncing off the wall before coming to a halt several feet away. Unfortunately for Winter, however, _this_ grunt wasn’t content to stand around gaping like the B-movie henchman she’d hoped him to be, and he instead tackled her the ground. Instead of keeping her pinned to the floor, however, where she’d have been far more helpless beneath his greater body mass, the grunt leaned back, for one reason or another. Winter seized the opportunity without thinking, some part of her brain screaming that her life depended on it, and she _slammed_ her forehead forward

She heard a sickening _crack_ as cartilage yielded to bone, and her captor recoiled in agony, giving Winter enough leverage to toss him off with a thrust of her hips. Staggering into a kneeling position, Winter frantically slipped the hairpin in between the teeth of her zipties, breaking the connection between the strips of plastic and allowing her hands to slip free.

She didn’t have time to rub her wrists as she refocused her attention on the guard behind her. He’d fallen to his knees but was fumbling for his gun. Winter gritted her teeth. Unlike Hollywood, in life-or-death situations most people could keep fighting even after a blow or two. Adrenaline allowed just about every schmuck off the street - not just the actors whose name made the title credits - to keep bludgeoning away at their adversaries far longer than ever seemed fair.

Unfortunately for the grunt, just because he still had the strength to continue fighting didn’t mean his odds had improved very much. In his favor was the fact that Winter had already burned through a _stupendous_ amount of energy in the first ten seconds of her struggle, and he was no longer off-guard and surprised. _Against_ him, though, was the fact that Winter now had her hands free. And while there weren’t as many double entendres about her _hands_ being deadly weapons, it didn’t mean that they _weren’t_.

She struck him thrice in the head before he could wipe the tears from his eyes, the pain and shock causing him to blackout. Winter practically dove in her haste to grab his gun.

As she’d discovered was more often the norm than not, Winter actually struggled to _think_ as she raised the rifle to shoulder-height. Her peripheral vision had spotted the terrorist in front of her moving to recover the gun she’d kicked from his hand, and some part of her brain instructed her body what to do, skipping conscious thought and going straight for reflexes and muscle memory. She pulled the trigger without really thinking where she was aiming, a short lifetime spent on the firing range suddenly repaying her investment in full.

_Crack._

As the body of the White Fang grunt crumpled to the floor, his mask doing little to hide the bloody entrance wound of her bullet, Winter realized that he’d already been raising his rifle, must have been a fraction of a second away from firing. And she could hardly have expected him to miss at this distance, jokes about Stormtroopers notwithstanding.

That pause, those few, heaving breaths, was all the recovery time Winter allowed herself. Others would be coming, and she had to _be somewhere else_ if she wanted to survive the next few minutes. That got her to move.

But she was running. Running because Weiss was here, in danger, with nothing more than whatever rent-a-cop Dearest Father had affixed to her. She let out a wordless prayer to whatever deity might be listening, and willed herself to _haul ass_.

* * *

Yang would have been the first to declare that no plan survives contact with the enemy. And Weiss would have rejoined with the truism that adaptability is a key quality in any good leader and/or manager. Either statement would’ve been applicable in their current context. Yet neither was made. 

Mostly because they were fighting for their lives.

Weiss was never one for martial arts, no matter how many Hong Kong “masterpieces” Yang “rescued” from The Last DVD Store in the City, but she could tell that Yang was slipping, and that that was a Very Bad Thing indeed.

Yang’s knee buckled slightly as the latest mook slammed his fist into the guard of her forearms. Yang winced in pain, and Weiss could’ve sworn she saw muscles _quivering_ from exhaustion. But Yang’s eyes were still afire with righteous fury, and she brought her adversary low with a series of strikes that seemed far more brutal than anything to be found on those aforementioned DVDs. Her hands were bloodied from a dozen cuts and scrapes, her body bruised in twice as many places, and a fragment of plaster seemed to have enmeshed itself in her mane. Weiss elected to refrain from bringing that last datum to her attention, at least for the moment. The last thing Yang needed was to start worrying about her _hair_...

They were running. Fatigue had long crept into Weiss’ muscles and bones, now it seemed to be seeping into her mind itself. She was _tired_ , exhausted to a degree that even the most strenuous workout in her private gym never left her. She’d lost track of where they were in the building, no longer possessing the mental energy to recreate the map in her head and track their movements within it. Now it was more instinctive, more reflexive, knowing they had to move _left_ here and down _this_ hallway, the higher-level portions of her brain still struggling to piece together _why_.

Voices were shouting after them, and the same part of Weiss’ brain that had been designed to avoid hyenas and lions was afire, neural pathways unused for years alive and _screaming_ , pushing her to ignore the lactic acids burning her arms and legs. The cries soon became all-consuming, stripping Weiss of her ability to plan more than a few seconds in advance, to navigate beyond the next bend in the hallway... 

Yang careened through the doorway, checking it with her shoulder, diving into a roll on the hard linoleum surface. Every close-quarters combat instructor she’d ever had would’ve torn her a new one for the Hollywood-protagonist degree of carelessness with which she was moving, but for once in her life Yang didn’t have a choice. Almost all of her training had presupposed some degree of tactical superiority over the enemy, because U.S. Marines had a habit of bringing the fight to their adversaries, rather than the other way around. So Yang had very little experience fighting her way out of scenarios where she was surprised, out-gunned, out-manned, and surrounded on all sides. It just really wasn’t the kind of position you found yourself in while serving in Kandahar or Fallujah. There were at least three gunmen with automatic rifles perhaps thirty seconds behind her and Weiss, and she had five (ish?) bullets left in her gun. While still arithmetically possible, that was not the kind of match-up she would win. Which meant, their attempts at heroism notwithstanding, she and Weiss needed to escape, to regroup, to change the rules of the game. The only place they could do that was _forward_ , through doors Yang had barreled through without a moment’s hesitation.

She was a blur diving at an improbable angle across the floor, and the sheer strangeness of it all was perhaps the only thing that saved her life. Yang rolled over her shoulder in a motion familiar to the practitioner of any martial art, continuing forward even without the use of her arms until her feet were planted on the floor once more. Her brain spotted two masks, attached to heads spinning around in shock, trying to figure out what was happening. She’d squeezed the trigger thrice before anyone had a chance to really think about it. She kept moving, heart pounding, sliding her back against the wall. Footsteps were unmistakably coming towards her from around the corner. Yang pivoted, raising her pistol up-

-and found herself staring down another, the barrel hovering mere inches from her forehead.

A single twitch would kill both of them. Yang’s brain _screamed_ as it desperately tried to process what her eyes were reporting, trying so hard to _think_ at a time when those long milliseconds of cognition could get her killed. She heard footsteps coming up behind her, a distant echo in her hindbrain.

“ _Winter_?” called a voice from behind her.

“ _Weiss_?” The voice in front of her said.

Yang spun around. “Weiss?”

“ _Yang_ ,” Weiss managed to get out, lungs heaving.

“Yang?” said the person Weiss had called Winter.

“Winter?” That being the name of Weiss’ sister. _Right_.

Their exchange of names was interrupted - before it could get any more farcical - with a hail bullets.

Yang was pressed against the wall before she could think, crouching low, Winter mirroring her posture on the opposite side of the hallway. Winter’s head darted out to fire two shots down the corridor, all before Yang could come to her senses.

“Holy shit! _You’re_ Winter Schnee?”

Winter raised a bemused eyebrow but didn’t turn her attention from her pistol, whose magazines she was in the process of swapping out. “The one and the same,” she replied, though there wasn’t much in the way of pomp or levity to her tone. “Your six!”

Yang was still spinning around by the time Winter fired, hitting a grunt who’d rounded the corner on the corridor they’d just come from. Forty feet away. In the head. With a pistol.

Weiss had been around Yang long enough to recognize her look of Genuine Amazement.

Winter counted to three before spinning out from behind cover. “ _Advancing_!” she called out, her dress flowing easily around her as she strode down a hallway pockmarked with bullet holes and stained with blood.

Without thinking Yang slid up behind her, forming the second point in what would have normally been a diamond formation. “On your six!” Weiss was left on rearguard duty, a bulky rifle clutched unfamiliarly in her arms.

They advanced, improbably, in spite of the heavy opposition they faced. Even more improbably, Yang and Winter managed to keep their small-talk up….

“You’ve served in uniform, I take it?” asked Winter, somehow sounding unfazed by the _dum-dum-dum_ pounding of a heavy machine gun at the other end of a hallway.

Yang grinned brilliantly at that. “ _Yup_. USMC. 2nd Marine Division, 1/8.”

Winter ducked around the corner, fired twice, waited, then spared Yang a second glance. “Ah, so you were one of the people who got paid to sit on boats.” She wordlessly signaled for them to advance.

Yang’s smile didn’t waver at the jibe, she even passed on the traditional rebuttal. It was _good_ to have someone reminding her of those days, even if it was through the timelessness of the inter-service rivalry. She pivoted around, squeezing off a few rounds to pin down anyone who might be following behind them. “You’re Army?”

Winter nodded, getting her eyes focused downrange. “ _Was_ , past tense,” she corrected. “My last assignment was with the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.”

Even someone as hard-to-impress as Yang couldn’t keep herself from gaping at that, eliciting a small, smug smile from Winter. “Holy shit, you’re…. you’re awe-”

“There’s something in your hair,” Winter noted, absently. “Plaster, I believe.” Yang blushed in equal parts anger and embarrassment, shaking the debris free.

“Thanks,” Yang called back. “That was some nice shooting back there, by the way.”

“Would you two stop _flirting_ and concentrate on getting out of here!” Weiss called out. That she still had the mental capacity to be irate spoke volumes to her mental fortitude.

“I am not _flirting_ with your _older sister_!” Yang cried back, indignantly. ‘ _At least, not_ consciously’, mocked some voice in the back of her mind. Weiss opened her mouth, but her retort was drowned by the sounds of heavy weapons fire.

Somehow it was less scary all of a sudden, sharing the stage with another warrior. No longer was Yang one woman fighting for their survival against innumerable odds. Well, maybe she still was, basically, but her psyche was convinced that it was another matter entirely. Now she was a soldier in a battle, with a comrade at her side.

They continued to advance until Winter held up a fist, and Yang halted on instinct, before following Winter’s hand gestures to stack up outside an unmarked door. Winter wordlessly gave the signal for ‘ _on three_ ’, the bodyguard swinging the door open for her as the elder Schnee moved into the room as effortlessly as mercury.

_Empty_. Yang sighed in relief.

“Clear,” called out Winter, her tone quieter than before. Yang took the cue.

“ _Clear_ ,” she practically hissed in answer. Perhaps a little redundantly, given that they were standing in an office scarcely larger than a cubicle. Judging by the multi-colored folders splayed on the desk it was an administrative office for the building’s management. Yang ushered in Weiss behind her, then poked her head out over the threshold for a few agonizing seconds, listening for footfalls or shouts or bullets.

Nothing.

Yang closed the door behind her, thumbing the little push-button lock even as Winter was sliding a filing cabinet to bar the threshold. The door looked like it was made a real wood of some kind, which meant it probably had more stopping power than any of the surrounding walls. Which, Yang belatedly realized, really wasn’t all that comforting a thought, given their current door-to-wall ratio.

When she turned around, ready to offer an acid-tongued assessment of their defensive position, she found herself confronting the two Schnee sisters, wrapped in a tight embrace. Or at least, Winter was wrapping Weiss. Weiss was mostly gasping for air and trying desperately not to squeeze the trigger of the rifle she was now awkwardly clutching with one hand. The younger sibling managing to set the gun down on the nearby desk before returning Winter’s hug, even if it lacked her sister’s vice-like grip.

“ _Hey_ ,” Weiss finally said, with such softness that Yang blinked furiously. Weiss was not really a ‘ _hey_ ’ kind of woman. “Hey… Winter…”

It was only when Winter _sniffed_ loudly that Yang realized what she’d missed. Winter detached herself from Weiss, at least partially, one hand resting on either of Weiss’ shoulders. They stayed that way, for a moment that hung long in the air, before Winter let go with one final _squeeze_.

“I feared I’d lost you,” Winter said, her voice low, on the edge of a warble.

“I’m here now,” Weiss replied.

It was a good ten seconds before Yang could bring herself to cough loudly. “So, um, do _I_ get a hug? For saving your sister’s life, and stuff?”

Winter shot her an icy glare that made Weiss’ ‘icy glares’ feel like trade winds in the Caribbean. “Miss Xiao Long,” Winter finally said by way of address. She pronounced the name wrong, or perhaps, _right_ , spot-on to the traditional Chinese, tone and all, _shiao_ in lieu of _ziao_. The American side of the Xiao Long clan had long since given up the ghost on that fight, though.

“Yang’s fine,” the bodyguard said. Some old habit in the back of her mind told her it was a bad idea to use real names while on a mission, particularly surnames, but she doubted that that operational security maxim was particularly applicable anymore. Weiss took a small step to move adjacent to Yang, two hands wrapping around Yang’s left arm in a gesture equal parts protective and possessive.

“Then you may address me as Winter,” the elder Schnee replied, extending a hand. Yang gave up on getting a hug and settled for a shake, internally wondering if that formal tone of voice was a quirk of her speech habits or an effect Winter consciously worked towards. She suspected a bit of both. “So you’re the woman who’s been sleeping with my sister.”

The bluntness of the statement stupefied bodyguard and protectee both.

“ _Winter_ , I can’t _believe_ you would-” // “Whoa, whoa, _whoa_ , let’s back up to the part where-”

Winter held up a hand, somehow managing to silence Weiss and Yang with a single gesture. Yang’s brain caught up to her a minute later, and she swore to figure out how to do that. _Nobody_ cut off Weiss. “We have rather more pressing concerns than determining _exactly_ what services your bodyguard is compensated for.”

The shock failed to dissipate from either of the younger women’s faces. Weiss was trying to figure out how best to communicate Yang’s _many_ admirable relationship qualities in the shortest amount of time. Yang was torn between a self-righteous shouting match and her desire to continue not being shot at by the White Fang. Winter, to the benefit of their odds of survival, pressed onwards. “We can’t stay here very long. While I have never credited members of the White Fang with being over-burdened by intellect, the surviving members of this conspiracy will eventually organize some kind of search effort.”

“Unless they’re retreating?” Yang offered, earning her a look of genuine curiosity from Winter. “We must have taken out like ten, fifteen of their people. There were a lot of them, but not, you know…”

Yang let the sentence trail off, but Winter was nodding in agreement. “You raise a good point, Miss- _Yang_. With the casualties they’ve taken, and vastly-diminished odds of accomplishing any of their primary objectives, Adam might decide to cut his losses.”

“In which case it’s probably safest for us to just get out of their way,” Weiss piped in, finally finding some way to contribute to the conversation. Yang glanced at her with some kind of a bemused expression.

“Well put, Weiss,” said Winter, and Weiss beamed like she’d gotten a test back with an _A+_ in red marker. “Though how a group of that size, even just the survivors, plans to escape from a dense urban environment is still beyond me.”


	7. Playing A Different Game Altogether

People had accused Adam of a lot of things over the years. _Monstrousness_ was probably top of the list, and there was some part of him that relished that, had become comfortable with the role like John Gardner’s Grendel. He had been accused of being suicidal, of being reckless, of being cunning and, on occasion, of being an idiot.

No one had ever accused Adam of lacking a flair for the dramatic.

He strolled through the hallway, sword at his side, suede leather shoes over marble floors. His grunts wore uniforms and masks, individuality served no purpose for them. But Adam had to be something more. Because this was - he had long come to realize - all theater, grotesque as it may be. A murder here and an explosion there would change the world no more than any Shakespeare tragedy. The trick, as it were, was getting the audience to buy into the narrative. To get them to believe that he was a creature of myth and fantasy, that his acts of savagery were more than glamorous crimes.

So even his defeats had to be the stuff of legends.

“This is Adam,” he said, speaking calmly and firmly into his walkie-talkie. He didn’t bother with codenames, not when anyone remotely familiar with the history of 21st-century terrorism would be able to recognize his voice. His _nomme de guerre_ was sufficient. “We have executed the two Schnee daughters. Prepare to evacuate in accordance with the Autumn Contingency.”

He popped the battery out of the device a moment later, handing the phone wordlessly to one of the masked minions trailing behind him, who would more thoroughly destroy the electronic components within. Not that he was particularly worried, his planning had assumed some of their hardware would inevitably make its way to the forensic labs of Quantico and Langley. He knew that nothing would be learned from them.

Adam continued making his way towards the rooftop, taking care never to hurry his stride. Anything showing urgency or haste could easily be misinterpreted as fear, and neither his prisoners nor his subordinates could be given excuse to read _that_ in his motions.

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket dug into its deepest pocket, which was laced with a mesh that blocked any electromagnetic signals. From within he withdrew a small smartphone and powered it on, staring at his mask in the black mirror of the screen until he confirmed a signal. The jamming unit had already been disabled. No doubt some of the hostages had hidden phones on their persons, within minutes the police would be inundated with a torrent of confused and contradictory messages, atop some misinformation from his own men. On his own phone, Adam activated an app that opened an encrypted messaging system. Even if the boys in blue could somehow pick his message out of the ether, they hadn’t a chance in Hell of decrypting it.

_> Compromised. No video will be made. Evacuating now. I predict an hour’s uncertainty._

He sent the message. Despite all his instructions otherwise he waited a few seconds to see if there was a response. And, exactly as promised, there wasn’t one, apart from the polite and automatic “Message Delivered” notification. He deleted any record of the message and then cracked the phone in his hands, before pocketing the remains.

Theatrics. As he made his way to the rooftop, the brisk night winds biting exposed skin, Adam allowed himself a smirk of self-satisfaction. Like a magician waving a wand, the whole act had never been anything more than a sideshow. Some part of the back of his brain - the part that knew that the message was everything - actually wanted to check Twitter. Maybe he’d gone viral.

The news would be spreading like wildfire, he knew, even if he couldn’t consult social media. The SDC, the company that made Exxon and Shell look like kids’ lemonade stands, would no doubt have had representatives in the police command vehicles and crisis centers, monitoring chatter for exactly this scenario. Even now they would be scurrying back to their masters, making panicked calls heralding calamity. And, even for a company as famously secretive as the SDC, word would leak. It wouldn’t take more than one rogue message, Adam knew, not if it came from an officer on-duty or a click-counting reporter. The two daughters of Jacques Schnee were dead, and whatever his succession plans were, they couldn’t be looking good.

The SDC’s stock would tank, even if the rumors were disproven before trading opened. Not that that was all that important to Jacques, what with the size of his ownership stakes. Adam knew his _patron_ (as he had taken to calling the woman prodding his outfit _this way_ and _that_ ) wasn’t thinking about stocks. The SDC was the single biggest mover of more than a dozen commodities worldwide. When you started trafficking in numbers that accounted for single-digit percentages of things like _copper_ and _tin_ , then Presidents and dictators had to sit up and take note. Foreign exchange markets would already be reacting apoplectically, as traders began speculating that the SDC would halt investments in a dozen nations due to the attack.

And if someone happened to have been making moves before the cat was out of the bag, well…

Adam shrugged on the parachute, strapping it on without worrying all that much about his margin for safety. Two of the grunts had spent the better part of an hour hauling the things up to a room just outside the rooftop access stairwell.

As escape plans went, this one had to be somewhere between ‘improvised raft out of Alcatraz’ and ‘hiding in an airplane’s wheel well’ in terms of audacity. Not that there was any reason it wouldn’t work, really. The parachutes were designed for BASE jumping, that is - opening a chute on very short notice. The police had a cordon around the entire tower, all the way to the subterranean access tunnels below. They _hadn’t_ thought to cover the river that snaked through the city, where a few suspiciously high-speed motorboats, originally used by drug smugglers looking to avoid the Coast Guard, were waiting under dark blue tarps.

He’d done the math. Properly executed, they had more than enough height to drift over to the river, and the winds were in their favor. Nobody had had a chance to practice the maneuver, beyond hastily donning the harnesses, but Adam wasn’t particularly concerned about that. Those minions who were competent would find a way to keep up. And those who weren’t, well… there was a Darwinian logic to it all.

Most of his men were already waiting for him. A few were hanging back, dropping smoke grenades out of shattered windows into the street below. He’d considered dropping live grenades - the mayhem would have made for some Pulitzer-worthy photos, no doubt - but as long as the police believed they could get most of the hostages out alive then they’d have no incentive to start a gunfight. He’d figure out what to do with the helicopters when he was safely on his boat.

Adam took a moment to pose, unsheathing his katana, illuminated only by a few lights from the helipad. The city was laid out beneath him, and he was its lord, surveying his domain.

At least, that’s what the photographs would convey. Like any good corporate PR team, the White Fang had one or two designated photographers. And terrorist propaganda or not, there was no way ratings-starved networks would pass on the priceless imagery of the moment. It’d look good in black and white.

Adam sheathed his sword, turning to face his amassed minions. There was no nervousness to his tone, no uncertainty in his posture.

“My brothers and sisters - our work here is done.”

* * *

Yang and Winter spilled into the ballroom, flowing like water. Both women were accustomed to being on the absolute tip of the vanguard, but Yang had reluctantly ceded that position to Winter. She was, after all, still Weiss’ bodyguard, and it made sense for her to stay closer to her charge.

Some hostages were already dispersing, having gotten wind of their captors’ sudden withdrawal. Most were still sitting tight, though, uncertain if the men guarding the escape routes had left. Winter’s gaze swept the room with quick efficiency, scanning faces and dresses even as she kept an eye out for the hard lines of firearms.

“Right side: clear!” Yang’s voice called out from halfway across the ballroom. Even over the adrenaline Winter could hear the woman’s voice beginning to waver with fatigue and exhaustion.

Winter honed in on middle-aged man who seemed to be slightly less frazzled than the other ex-hostages. “Cinder Fall! Where is she?” Winter demanded, only belatedly remembering to lower her pistol.

The man blinked. “Who?”

Winter growled in annoyance, but Fall had done a remarkable job of remaining an enigma. “Cinder Fall. Woman wearing a short black qipao. Was with me when I surrendered.”

He shrugged. “She’s not here,” he supplied, not sounding particularly apologetic about it.

Winter was about to shout a curse when Yang called out to her. “Miss Schnee? Err, _Winter_?”

Winter hurried over to the window Yang was looking out of, the exact same panes Cinder had been gazing through when the night’s ruckus began. From their perch, Yang and Winter could make out a dozen parachutes blossoming open in the sky, drifting through the air like black petals. Far below, illuminated by emergency lights from the fire department, they could barely see the billowing clouds of smoke. Some part of Yang’s heart sank knowing that the Bad Guys were getting away, but a sense of relief was creeping into the back of her mind, threatening to crack the mental dams she’d erected to keep the exhaustion at bay.

“They’re pulling out,” Winter noted, more to herself than Yang. It _was_ odd, as normal protocol for these things would have involved negotiating the release of hostages in exchange for a fully-fueled 747 and a one-way ticket to Pyongyang International Airport. Or something. That the White Fang was resorting to - however stylishly - fleeing for their lives made it clear that they’d lost control of their human bargaining chips. “The emergency stairwells.”

“Huh?” Winter’s statement came as something of a non-sequitur to Yang, who was trying to keep her guard up while being halfway hypnotized by the display of synchronized parachuting unfolding beneath her.

“It’s the only place Cinder could be,” Winter continued, spinning on her heel. That wasn’t strictly true, but it was the best theory Winter had at a moment, and she was running with it. Yang half-jogged to keep up with her.

“Okay, I know I spaced out for a second, but who… or _what_?... is Cinder again?”

Winter shook her head without slowing down. “A snake,” she growled. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the look of extreme bewilderment on Yang’s face. “Metaphorically. She claims to be a consultant, technically.”

“Right,” said Yang, in the tone of voice of someone who knew they were missing a few pieces of the puzzle but going along with you anyways.

Winter was halfway to the door leading to one of the stairwells when she was stopped in her tracks. Not a lot of people could bring Winter to a dead stop just by looking at her, but Weiss Schnee was most definitely one of them.

“Weiss…” The younger Schnee raised those beautiful eyes of hers, seeming to peer into her sister’s soul. Weiss didn’t look hysteric or angry or even all that tired, but the _worry_ was etched onto her face. “Are you okay?”

“ _I’ll_ be fine,” Weiss declared, having taken the question as a challenge, apparently. She shot Winter a pointed glare.

“I don’t know where one of the hostages is, Weiss,” Winter stated, by way of explanation. “She could still be in danger.”

“And you _will_ be in danger if you keep chasing these terrorists,” Weiss observed in rebuttal. “How much more can you take?”

Winter winced a little at her sister’s damning logic. “I may have put her in unnecessary danger in the first place,” Winter replied, her voice quieting slightly as she spoke. “I have… a debt of honor to repay.”

Yang rolled her eyes. “What is this, a Gilbert and Sullivan play?” Four eyes locked onto Yang, blue orbs filled with suspicion. “What? I took high school drama.”

Winter shook her head. “Miss Xiao Long, stay here and keep my sister safe,” she ordered, the steely tone of an officer slipping into her voice.

“Got it, Miss Sch-”

“You can go with her.” Heads snapped to face Weiss. “I mean, if you want to, Yang.”

“Of course I will!” Yang answered almost without hesitation.

Weiss shook her head a little. “No, don’t say that. I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger again. But my sister…”

“I’m going. See you in five, Weiss.”


	8. There’s a Moment in Time...

...Yang made it to the second access door a moment before Winter, if only by virtue of her more practical footwear. The bodyguard’s back collided with the adjacent wall, fingers playing across the butt of her pistol, reflexes and instincts surpassing and suppressing conscious thought. Winter mirrored her position on the other side the door, her breaths coming heavy but regular. The two former soldiers barely needed a moment to exchange glances.

“I’ll get the door, you take point,” Winter instructed, her voice a low murmur. She would’ve preferred to be first one over the threshold, but the handle was on her side, and they were moving too fast to waste seconds repositioning.

“On your mark,” Yang half-whispered in reply. The bodyguard detached herself from the wall, raising her pistol into a firing stance before it. The movements were made unthinkingly. Winter’s free hand made its way to the door’s handle, resting ever-so-gently on the curved metal.

“On my mark… _Three...two...one…_ mark!”

Winter threw the door open, standing aside to let Yang barrel across the threshold. Winter followed suit a half-second later, snapping her pistol upright in one fluid motion. Her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting a moment later, dark blue eyes scanning the room with manic intensity-

\- Winter found herself stopped behind Yang a moment too late, nearly toppling into the younger woman. It took her a fraction of an instant to see what had halted the bodyguard’s advance: a lone, White Fang grunt, with a bony finger curled precariously tightly around the curve of a trigger, attached to a gun, pointed at the skull of Cinder Fall.

“Back the _fuck_ up,” the grunt shouted, his voice on the cusp of breaking. “Just, d-don’t make a move, or-or-or she _gets it_.” Yang recognized the voice from their time spent eavesdropping on the White Fang radio chatter. _Perry_ , she was pretty sure.

“Just drop the gun, Perry. _Now_!” Yang barked, violet eyes staring unblinkingly at the threat before her. Using first names was supposed to be good for establishing rapport, she’d learned in a hostage negotiation workshop. Or had that been late-night cable?

Winter took a few, cautious steps to the side, around forty-five degrees off of the line between the thug and Yang. She still didn’t have a clean shot, not with the way he was using Cinder as a human shield, and even if she had Winter would’ve been reluctant to take it. A single twitch, even the spasms of death throes, could be enough to pull his finger down upon the trigger.

“Y-you have to let me go, okay?” Perry half-threatened, half-pleaded. “I’m _not_ going back to prison just because they _ran out_ of fucking _parachutes_! I’m _not going back_ , do you _hear me_!?”

“Loud and clear, buddy,” Yang replied, though there was no _bonhomie_ in her tone. A few stray blonde hairs drifted in front of her visage, but she didn’t acknowledge them with so much as a shake of her head. “Let the innocent lady go, and everyone walks away.”

Cinder’s eyes darted over to Winter at that. In the weeks to follow, when Winter was awake in the quiet hours before sunrise, she would swear to herself that Cinder _smiled_ at Yang’s choice of adjectives.

“Not a _fucking_ chance,” Perry cried, jostling Cinder as he shuffled about, impotent. “Drop your guns, or I _shoot her_. Right here, right _now_.”

Yang suppressed a curse. She was waiting for the moment when the barrel of his pistol would drift, for him to wave it theatrically at the ceiling, or even point it at one of _them_ , like the bad guys in every Hollywood stand-off _ever_ did. Reality was refusing to cooperate, to Yang’s _considerable_ aggravation. With a high-powered rifle and a proper scope she was reasonably sure she could have hit his brainstem, dropping him before his brain could dispatch the neurons that would tighten his finger’s grip around the trigger, even as he died.

But right now she couldn’t make the shot, not with any measure of confidence. And Yang knew the old saying about the threats posed by cornered animals, had firsthand familiarity with the dangers of a mind disintegrating under stress. They were unquestionably past the point of logic or rationality, only the emotions of adrenaline held any sway now.

“Okay.” The word came out as a statement more than in agreement, the word sounding clipped as it came off Yang’s tongue. “ _Okay_.”

Yang lowered the gun, very gently, to the floor. If she was lucky, his attention would wander or the barrel of his pistol would drift, giving Winter the opportunity to take a shot... 

...but he wasn’t cooperating. The gun was still pressed into Cinder Fall’s head, his eyes still locked on Winter’s. Winter corrected her stance slightly, her arm not wavering in the slightest. “Drop it!” he shouted at her, his voice almost pleading as it trembled.

“As you wish.”

Winter dropped very gently to one knee, making a show of laying her pistol on the ground, the _clink_ of metal on concrete seeming to echo through the harshly-lit stairwell. She kept her hand on the butt of the gun for a long second, then _pushed_ it across the floor in the grunt’s direction and then she stood up and she shot him in the head-

“- _Jesus_ fucking _Christ_ ,” shouted Yang, half-crouched and with her hands over her ears. The gunshot had been as loud as an explosion in the echoing confines of the stairwell, and her ears were ringing something _awful_.

Winter’s expression was as frozen as the moons of Pluto, watching unblinkingly as blood seeped out of the first-sized hole she’d created in the goon’s skull. Cinder stood no more than a few inches away from the worst of her carnage, bodily fluids forming a sanguine pool around her stilettos, her dress already absorbing a hundred dark red spots into its ink-black fabric.

Yang’s brain belatedly figured out how Winter had pulled off that feet of apparent impossibility. She’d had a second pistol on her all along. It had been a magician’s sleight-of-hand, really, reaching behind her back to pull it out while everyone was still focused on the pistol she’d surrendered, sliding across the floor. Theatrics. Not a particularly complicated trick, all things considered, but the execution had been flawless. Yang had tried to do as much the same thing, but the late Perry hadn’t let down his guard until he’d thought _both_ women had been disarmed.

Cinder finally moved. The tip of her shoe was used to nudge the pistol out of the dead man’s grip. She stared down at the bloodied body with something that looked less like _shock_ or _horror_ and more like _mild distaste_.

“An excellent shot, Winter,” said the lady in black, her tone suggesting she should have had a Pinot noir in her hand. Cinder leaned forward, slightly, assessing her ex-captor’s weapon. “How were you able to tell that he’d forgotten to release the safety on his pistol?”

Yang’s head whipped around. _The safety was on the whole time_? She knew the White Fang grunts were pretty much total amateurs but still…

“I didn’t.”

The two words managed to drop the temperature by something like twenty degrees. Yang’s mind was still reeling from the implications of it all, at the risk Winter had been willing to take, when she saw the smile curling around the lips of Cinder Fall.

“Well wasn’t that _daring_...”


	9. Coda

“Alright, let’s start from the top again, _Winter Schnee_. If that really is your _real name_.”

For the first time of the night, something approaching pure, unmitigated despair creeped to the forefront of Winter’s consciousness. She had been sitting in the interrogation room of nearest police precinct for what was approaching four hours, and they somehow _still_ _hadn’t even started?!_

“Gentlemen, for the last time, I’ve already told you everything I know, which has no doubt been corroborated by any of the dozens of witnesses you _surely_ have interviewed by this time?” The sentence came out slightly more as a desperate prayer than she’d intended.

“That’s _Junior Detective_ to you!” demanded one of the (alleged) detectives, if possessing a badge could be considered meeting the qualifications of the rank. She doubted his shirt was up to dress code. “Where were you on the night of the thirteen?”

“The thirteenth? You mean _the night that just passed_?” It was approaching something like five in the morning, so Winter wasn’t quite sure how to refer to the past dozen hours anymore. She exhaled loudly through gritted teeth. “I spent the late afternoon and the early part of the evening at a salon and my hotel, preparing for the gala. And then I spent the rest of the night _fighting off a terrorist attack with no police assistance._ ”

“Rather _convenient_ , isn’t it, for you to be show up just in time to save the day,” said the other detective. He was good looking, in a schoolboyish kind of way, but the blue hair made him look like a wannabe K-pop idol. If Weiss had brought someone with that dye job home Winter would’ve solved the problem with an electric razor.

It took almost all of Winter’s _considerable_ reserves of willpower to avoid slamming her head into the table before her with enough force to cause short-term memory loss. Maybe that was it. Wear her down through idiocy and inanity. Gitmo 2.0. 

Winter sighed. “Alright, you got me,” she declared. “The entire terrorist attack was an elaborate conspiracy designed to provide me with opportunities for conspicuous gallantry and all the benefits resulting thereof.”

And then something _horrible_ raced through her mind as she recalled a conversation she’d had at the beginning of the evening, one that hadn’t come up over the course of her not-quite-legally-torturous interrogation. The roll Cinder had wanted her to play in the chessboard of the world.

And then Winter realized a split-second too late that that had been the exact wrong thing to say, given the audience at hand.

“Call the chief,” said the more-poorly-dressed of the two. “I think we just wrapped this case.”

* * *

“...so then I punched him _again_ in the face, this time with my right hand because I think I busted something on my left knuckle..”

The two detectives listened with a mixture of rapt attention and abject horror. Yang Xiao Long had entered the room basically a fiery ball of sunshine. It had become very clear very quickly that there was a side of the woman that was quite frankly _shockingly_ excited about violence.

“...and he was saying something which I _think_ was about his mother but it was kind of hard to understand so-”

“Why was it hard to understand?” asked the blonder of the two detectives, managing to get a word in edgewise.

Yang glared at him. “Because I’d broken his jaw at this point, remember? Come on, keep up!”

“Right. Sorry.” The detective slumped back in his seat. “It just seems like at this point you were being kind of… mean?”

Yang’s brow furrowed. “I wouldn’t say I’m mean. I just get paid to do mean things.” She actually sounded a little _hurt_ by the insinuation.

The well-dressed detective leaned forward. “Yeah, but you like doing it,” he pointed out.

She shrugged. “Well, I think it's important to enjoy what you do.”

* * *

“Thank you for meeting with us, Miss Schnee,” said the blunette detective, flashing her a smile that was a pearly advertisement for the best dental hygiene products the market had to offer.

Weiss ignored him, returning her attention to her nails. Her French manicure wasn’t even recognizable anymore, she noted with a grimace.

“Anyways… we were hoping to get a statement from you, just so we can figure out what everyone was doing-”

“-Lawyer.”

The detectives blinked in unison.

“I want a lawyer. Anything I say after this point should be considered extracted under duress and inadmissible as evidence in a court of law.”

Weiss reached around in her bag for a file.

* * *

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” said Winter, as she finally exited the interrogation room. Weiss rose from a hard wooden bench to greet her, but not before slapping Yang’s bicep, prodding the bodyguard out of the nap she’d drifted into.

“ _Ow_ , hey, mind the bandages,” griped Yang, making a melodramatic show of rubbing her professionally-tended injury. Weiss had already scheduled a follow-up appointment with a GP, but the medics had assured her that Yang was in excellent health, all things considered. Certainly better than just about anyone else she’d run into over the course of the night.

The two sisters embraced

“Hey, um, Miss Schnee?” Yang stood up, straightening her jacket like she was preparing for an interview.

“ _Winter_ ,” the addressee corrected, very softly.

“Right, um… I just want to say that, while I thought you were going to be a total stick-in-the-mud, no-fun, high-strung…” A pair of raised eyebrows whispered to Yang that she should stop belaboring the point. She sucked in her breath. “I just want to say that you actually seem pretty cool. And you had my back in there. So thanks.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Yang,” said Winter, and a rare, honest smile graced her face. “There are many things I could say about you, but I will force myself to be succinct.” Winter paused. “You have my permission to continue sleeping with my sister.”

And with that: she was off. Her heeled shoes clicked down the linoleum tiling as she strolled down the hallways of the police station, before vanishing around a corner.

Weiss was able to compose herself first, though the twenty seconds it took to do so was not precisely impressive. “You… you do _not_ need her permission to sleep with me,” Weiss managed to get out. “I can make my own decisions!”

“...Yeah,” Yang agreed, though her voice sounded distant.

They made their way through the hallway, consciously taking an exit different from Winter’s.

“Kind of nice to have,” said Yang, a minute or two later. “Not that we need it, I know, just…”

Weiss wordlessly picked up her train of thought, and continued it of her own accord. _Because Lord knows_ Father _is never going to approve. Because vindication from one’s peers is always pleasant. Because you trust Winter’s judgement, perhaps even more than your own. Because Yang is more a family woman than she lets on and since we’re getting serious she actually thinks about that stuff..._

Something in the back of Weiss’ mind agreed with Yang. Not that she’d ever say so out loud, of course.

“Come on,” said Yang, snapping Weiss from her reverie. “I promised I’d get you a drink, didn’t I?”

* * *

The sun’s rays were just beginning to peak over the horizon, waging a losing battle against the billowing morning clouds. Winter rubbed her eyes in a quiet admission of exhaustion, debating whether to risk a cat-nap and disrupt her sleep schedule or simply try to power through until nightfall.

Before she could finish her calculations, however, a Dodge Viper the color of dried blood pulled up to the curb. Winter didn’t even blink as the passenger-side window was lowered, revealing a woman she’d nearly killed (or at least, _gotten killed_ ) just a few hours ago.

“I was wondering where you’d vanished,” said Winter. She swung open the door and dropped herself in the seat. Cinder was speeding off a moment later. “The local authorities wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“I have no doubt that they did,” Cinder agreed, smiling softly but not warmly. In under a minute they were pushing eighty miles an hour. “Unfortunately for their no doubt _fascinating_ reports, I had other business to attend to.”

Winter snorted at Cinder’s evasiveness. She still had no more appetite for all the smoke and mirrors, but she’d come to accept it as part of the package. A package which, on some animalistic level that eluded introspection, Winter was _drawn_ to.

“They think you were swept up in the crowd. Slipped through the cordon with some of the panicked hostages.” Cinder allowed a bemused expression to form, but declined to provide Winter with any further clarification. Unsurprisingly. “Where are you driving, anyways?” Winter belatedly remembered to ask.

“The King’s Ransom,” Cinder replied, a pianist’s fingers manipulating the wheel with faint touches.

“That’s a hotel?”

Cinder nodded. “Motel. Just outside the city limits. It’s not the Imperial in Tokyo, I know, but the concierge keeps his mouth shut, and they rent rooms by the hour.”

“Well isn’t that daring,” said Winter, quietly.

Cinder smiled devilishly as her words were reflected back on her.

The car sped swiftly out of the city, and neither woman bothered with seatbelts. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feedbacks are my fuel. Particularly in this case, where I'm trying something that's focused on the action instead of the relationships. So… did the action feel good? Flow smoothly? I have a newfound respect for authors who can write page after page of gun battles and keep you engaged the whole time. Feel free to PM at reddit at the handle [pvoberstein](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/). I'm also getting the hang of Discord, fancy that.
> 
> AUTHOR RANT TIME: So, yeah, my first fic in far too long. Long story short, I fell into a depressive funk and just could not for the life of me write. I probably wouldn't have finished this fic were it not for the social obligations of the Big Bang; I had to resort to forcing myself to pound out 1,000 words a day for a week or two until I could actually get it done. I'm used to writing in manic bursts of energy, and writing while _not_ on one was…. challenging. This is probably (definitely) not my strongest work, but it was a good learning experience, if nothing else. And I couldn't _not_ publish it after the mind-numbing number of hours invested in it. And all that being said, I have an idea or three in the works, so (hopefully) I'll be returning to form soon.
> 
> There were no proofreaders or editors for this fic, so if you see an error, just yell at me. There _were_ a gratuitous number of Easter Eggs, shout outs, and appropriations from popular culture, because I need to steal from people funnier than me.
> 
> This fic was inspired by _[The Habits of Magpies](https://archiveofourown.org/series/403321)_ series by [WilliamRaineyHarlaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamRaineyHarlaw/pseuds/WilliamRaineyHarlaw). Which you really should read, because it's probably my favorite depiction of Winter Schnee, and I'm bloody picky.


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